


Effects of Obliteration

by geneticallydead



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Amnesia, Avengers Family, Awesome Pepper Potts, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Canon Divergence - Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Comic Book Science, Complete, Domestic Avengers, Domestic Fluff, Explicit Sexual Content, Happy Ending, M/M, Natasha Romanov Is a Good Bro, Oblivious Steve Rogers, Social Media, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-22
Updated: 2016-07-22
Packaged: 2018-07-25 22:53:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 25,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7550383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/geneticallydead/pseuds/geneticallydead
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I watched a documentary on the bombs dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima a while ago. In the blast radius, sometimes a… a person blocked the bleaching effect of the radiation. So the person was vaporized, but a shadow was left behind, on a bridge or a wall – their shape, their outline, when they were completely gone," Steve said. "It’s called a nuclear shadow.”</p><p>“If you’re implying the Soldier is like a nuclear shadow, then that is seriously fucking dark, man,” Sam said dryly.</p><p>OR</p><p>Before the fall of the Soviet Union, the Winter Soldier was sent to the American arm of Hydra - only there was a malfunction in the cryo-unit that meant it couldn't be opened, and it was left, powered but abandoned, in an underground base.</p><p>25 years later, the Avengers find it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [【冬盾冬】Effects of Obliteration消除的作用](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10877376) by [mingmingmie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mingmingmie/pseuds/mingmingmie)



> I wanted to write a Winter Soldier recovery fic, but with some kind of spin where there isn't the inherent angst of the Soldier, you know, trying to flat out murder Steve on several occasions. 
> 
> So um, ta da?
> 
> *throws fic at you and runs*

They find it when Tony blasted a hole in the bunker of the Hydra cell in Arizona they were taking out, revealing a series of hidden passageways and a switchback staircase that descended into the earth. Going by the spider webs as thick as orchard netting they found throughout, it was likely that the bunker’s most recent Hydra inhabitants didn’t know the passages were there either.

Steve and Natasha took point after Tony tried flaming away all of the spider webs and almost set them all on fire. Natasha picked up an old steel bar and started pointedly swiping the webs away with ease – all without breaking the flat stare she gave Tony – and Steve followed in her wake, shield up.

By his reckoning they descended some four stories into the earth before the stairway opened up into a long room that looked eerily like the first Shield headquarters at Camp Lehigh that was destroyed around them all those months ago – clunky 70s-era metal desks and pine-paneled walls, but here the Hydra insignia was right on display instead of a Shield one. Tony left his suit on Sentry-mode, forging ahead while Nat and Steve more diligently looked for useable data – what projects were planned here, what Hydra operatives cut their teeth in this bullpen.

Tony came striding back a minute later, his face a little too excited for desks and moldering papers. “Found something. A door. Not like a regular door, but the kind that just begs me to blast it open because it’s probably thicker than a bank vault. Ever wanted to break into one of those just to see if you could?” Tony asked, climbing back into the Iron Man suit.

“I can and _have_ ,” Nat said blithely, which surprised nobody, of course.

Tony used his repulsors to get down the long corridor he’d found – which frankly, was cheating, and he was only doing it because now he was worried Nat wouldn't let him blast through the door – and Steve glanced at Nat with a shrug, and followed after.

It didn't look like a bank vault door by they time they got to it – Tony had gotten through with an impressively controlled blast that only left a few metal carts, the kind they used in operating theatres, knocked over on the other side. As Steve climbed through, he could hear Jarvis giving a report as Tony stepped out of his suit once more. “No heat signatures detected, however this room receives a power feed. It appears to be for the metal casket and control panel to your left, Sir.”

“Aw, ain’t that sweet – they left us some toys to play with,” Tony quipped, and headed for the control panel. Natasha headed for filing cabinets against the far wall.

Steve didn't look at the upright casket and its control panel straight away – he was drawn in horrified fascination instead to the chair on the other side of the room. It looked like a dentist’s chair gone wrong, with restraints for arms and legs, and the restraints for the left arm seemed oddly more elaborate and durable. There was a metal apparatus overhanging where the head would go, and Steve felt a bit sick when he saw a discarded rubber mouth guard on the dirty floor.

“I think we’re looking at the remains of the Russian arm of Hydra’s cryogenic experiments, boys,” Natasha said, flipping through some files. Steve drifted away from the chair, to get a closer look at the casket – an upright metal tube, its door with a tiny grimy window set into it.

“Probably hung the power for it off the grid and back up systems for the bunker upstairs when they built it, before they literally bricked it over and forgot it was there,” Tony said, fiddling with some switches. He blew some dust off the panel, only to start sneezing when it blew back into his face.

“How long has it been here?” Steve asked, setting down his shield against the wall. When he walked up to the casket he could hear the faint hum of power, and the little window was on level with his face, but opaque with dirt.

“Looks like it was abandoned in the late 80s. Pierce has his signature all over these reports, no surprise – they brought in the asset-” here she motioned at the cryochamber “-from Russia when the Soviets started losing control of the Union, only to discover there was some kind of malfunction. They could never use it.”

Steve took a handkerchief out of one of the pouches on his belt, and heard Tony snort behind him. “You really are America’s golden – aah-CHOO! Okay, give it here.”

“Not for you!” Steve called cheerfully, and used the handkerchief to swipe at the window – but paused when he realized the grime was unpleasantly _damp_. He laid his other hand against the cryochamber. It was cold and clammy, like a drink covered in condensation. Dread filled his stomach. “Hey Nat, they say specifically that the cryochamber is the asset they acquired? Or if it had something _inside_ that could be the asset?”

“Why?” she asked, and she and Tony both looked up as Steve gave one last firm wipe and took the filthy handkerchief away from the cryochamber window.

Now somewhat clean, they could see the faint outline of a hand pressed against the frosted glass.

*

The bunker was clear, so they called Bruce down from the quinjet where he’d been waiting in case of a Code Green. He looked as relieved as always when he got to step into a cleared area with all his clothes on, and Clint trailed after him.

“The question is: what do we do about it?” Steve asked, once they’d been briefed.

“There are boxes and boxes of files here, I’d need time to translate them all – it would be faster to scan them at the Tower and have Jarvis translate. But from a closer look at some of the files from the Soviets, I think this could be the Winter Soldier,” Nat said soberly.

“The Winter what now?” Tony asked.

Clint gave a snort. “He doesn’t exist. He’s a ghost story – an assassin with no face, accountable for countless kills, active for nearly thirty years. The kind of story that gets passed around the intelligence community like a fairytale.”

Natasha flipped a file open on one of the metal counters, and Steve stepped forward to look at the spill of paperwork and brittle old photographs. In the photographs, a man could be seen, although his face was never quite visible – long lank hair and a sleekly muscled body, except for his left arm, which was articulated metal.

“How many ghost stories have a metal arm?” she asked with a smirk. Clint came forward to sift through the photographs beside Steve. They showed the man strapped into the chair, tendons straining with what must be excruciating pain. The man standing, with his head tipped forward so his hair covered his face, a rifle loosely cradled in his hands. The arm was functional then.

“Okay we have to defrost him just so I can get to the arm,” Tony said from behind Steve, who cast him a dark look.

“ _If_ we can defrost him – just because stasis has been maintained, doesn’t mean we can reverse the process. This thing doesn’t happen to come with a user manual, does it?” Bruce asked, poking through a pile of dusty files.

“I think the question isn’t if we can defrost him, but if we _should_ ,” Clint said quietly. The rest of the team turned to look at him, and he shrugged. “If he’s the Winter Soldier, and he comes out hostile and swinging, we’d have to contain him. Indefinitely.”

“He’s already being contained. Like serving a prison sentence without ever having a trial,” Steve argued.

“Much as I hate to agree with Cap, he’s got a point,” Tony said. Steve rounded on him.

“If we can get him out alive you’re _still_ not getting the damn arm.”

“So you’re saying if we defrost a corpse, _then_ I get it?”

“If he comes out alive he might be no better than an automaton,” Nat interrupted, holding up another file. “There are dozens of files like these – detailing the mind control techniques and programming inflicted on him over the years. He might be a blank slate, and never able to recover.”

“But he deserves a second chance, doesn’t he?” Bruce asked, with a kind of somber smile that made his face look pained. “I think it’s fair to say all of us have had one, after doing things we need to atone for. Are we really the people to say he shouldn’t get at least a _chance_ to be a better person?”

There was silence in the room for a moment. Steve stared over at the quietly humming metal casket in the corner, the frosty outline of a hand over the window – he couldn’t help but think of Shield, and what things he may have unwittingly been doing for Hydra. The man in the cryotube was reaching out. Maybe he was hostile, or maybe he was another victim of Hydra, needing help.

“Tony, see if you and Bruce can rig up a power source for transport. We’re going to try to get him out alive,” Steve said decisively.

Tony threw up a sloppy salute and started talking logistics with Bruce, while Steve stayed staring pensively at the metal chamber. Nat came to stand beside him, fanning herself with a grainy photograph of the Winter Soldier’s scarred shoulder, where a seam of metal met flesh.

“Can’t save everyone, Cap,” she said, almost gently.

“The day we stop trying is the day we’ve lost,” he said, and she had nothing more to say to that.

*

It was almost two months after they transported the Winter Soldier’s cryotube from Arizona back to Stark Tower until Tony and Bruce seemed confident they could reverse the cryofreeze process successfully. Steve watched them argue good naturedly over a panel of instruments – Tony had decided they needed to dress for the occasion and tried providing dramatic white lab coats to the assembled Avengers, and grumbled when everyone but Bruce had refused. Nat and Clint were drinking coffee and talking in low voices, looking relaxed except for the fact they were suited up and armed to the teeth. Steve had chosen not to climb into Cap’s gear, instead wearing simple exercise pants and a t-shirt that he could easily move in. If the Soldier came out hostile, they wanted to be ready – so his shield was leaning against a table in easy reach.

Tony had installed the cryotube in one of the Hulk-proof labs that seemed to dot the Tower, in case they needed to go into lockdown, while Bruce himself planned to stick close to a side door he could duck out of if things got violent. The Iron Man suit stood in sentry-mode by one of the windows – Steve thought it looked like a sardine tin that had been peeled open and emptied, but would save that thought for if Tony got particularly annoying.

“Okay,” Tony called finally, clapping his hands together in excitement. “Operation Red Ice-tober-”

“Tony,” Steve said warningly.

“-is a go. There’ll be some blinky lights, a shitload of vapor, keep your metal arms inside the vehicle at all times-”

“He _means_ , this process involves a rapid reversal of the cellular freeze, but the cryochamber has to remain closed until the interior atmosphere equalizes – that part is actually a lot slower than the defrost,” Bruce said, tipping his glasses down his nose and speaking directly to Steve. “Going by Jarvis’s translations of the Soldier’s files, if we do this right – if he’s still alive in there _and_ capable of higher brain functions – he may return to consciousness several minutes before we can actually open it up. In other words… don’t let him out until the light by the door goes green, _Steve_.”

Steve felt a lot like the whole room had pinned him as the softie who’d casually crack open the door before the process was finished and give the Soldier the bends, or something. They were probably not wrong. “Understood. Don’t pop the tab too early or everything will fizz over.”

Tony pointed at him in delight, but looked at Bruce. “He made a joke, almost. Did you-? Never mind, I’m sure Jarvis got it, we can watch the play-by-play later.”

“Stark if you drag this on any longer the guy in stasis is going to die of old age,” Nat said, coming over to stand at the ready. Steve saw Clint climbing up on top of some built-in cabinets, close to the ridiculously high ceiling, pulling his bow from his back.

“Fine, let’s get Operation… Defrost Franken-ice? I just can’t get this name down, too many options. Let’s get this show on the road,” Tony said, retreating back to the instrument panel, while Bruce went to another panel that looked entirely the same, just on the opposite side of the room.

“ _Doctor_ Stark?”

“By all means, _Doctor_ Banner.”

Steve rolled his eyes, while Nat smirked.

“Shut up, you know they’re cute,” she said quietly, and hip checked him.

“Executing now,” Tony said simply, and hit a button.

The gently humming cryotube began to rumble, a deep resonant sound that felt like a vibration through the very air. It began to hiss, too – and a moment later, great clouds of vapor began to vent. It obscured the cryotube, and Steve stepped forward instinctively.

“Forty percent,” Banner called.

“Power source is stable – of course it is, it’s _my_ power source,” Tony said. Steve wasn’t listening, focused instead on the groaning of metal and the clanking of the tube. He stepped further into the vapor cloud, trying to make out the little glass window with the hand pressed against it.

“Steve, step back, I want eyes on you,” Nat warned, but he ignored her. Yeah – there was the hand, still stuck against the glass.

“Sixty percent,” Bruce called.

“Jarvis, can you get any reading inside the cryochamber now?” Tony asked.

“I cannot, sir, the metal still interferes with my scanners.”

One of the fingers twitched.

Steve jolted to a stop in front of the cryotube door, staring fixedly at the hand, almost sure he’d been seeing things – or maybe the stress on the metal was causing movement within.

“Seventy-five percent!”

The hand dropped away from the glass.

Steve stopped breathing, trying to peer through the glass, but of course the damn Russians hadn’t put an interior light on the upright coffin they used for freezing a human, so he couldn’t see a thing. He tipped his head forward, listening, and almost jumped a foot when he heard something thump heavily against the door from the inside.

“Steve?” Nat called. The cryotube was no longer venting now, and the clouds of vapor were beginning to clear – he could just make her out, standing with a handgun in each hand.

“Eighty-five percent!”

He heard it then. Three distinct taps against the metal. Someone _knocking_.

“He’s alive,” Steve said breathlessly to himself. And then louder: “He’s alive!”

“Ninety percent – don’t open that damn door, Cap!” Bruce called, which – okay, so Steve had been reaching for the handle without really being aware of it.

Steve cautiously raised his hand closer to the window, and tapped three times on the door. He listened, ear all but pressed against the metal, but didn’t hear anything else.

“Ninety-five percent!”

Steve raised his hand to knock again, when something hit the inside of the door, _hard_. He reeled back, staring at where the metal beside the handle to the door was dented outward, trying to figure the kind of force required to do _that_. Exactly how strong was this metal arm?

“Nat?” he called, and a moment later caught his shield whizzing through midair, bracing it in front of himself.

Something hit the glass window in the cryotube door, and a spider web of fractures radiated out from the center. Steve dropped into a defensive stance. “Bruce, I’m pretty sure this guy is coming out whether we’re ready or not so-” he started.

“Ninety-eight percent- _oh_. Yeah, okay good idea,” he heard Bruce call back, and a moment later the clang of a door as Bruce made himself scarce.

The glass was hit again from the inside, and this time it shattered – Steve was shocked to realize it must have been over an inch thick, looking at the shards – and then a metal arm snaked through, patting clumsily at the metal door panel. Steve checked over his shoulder, making sure his team was ready – Tony had climbed into his suit and was hanging back by the windows, Clint had an arrow notched and ready, while Natasha stood, guns up. He gave them each a nod, and turned back to the cryotube.

“Hold fire until we know what we’re dealing with!” Steve called over his shoulder.

The metal arm found the door handle – a latch that lifted up and outwards to release – just as the light beside the door went green. It fumbled, then yanked, and the door unsealed a crack and the arm disappeared back through the hole in the glass. For a moment nothing happened, then the door swung open and a naked man fell through face-first.

Steve didn’t really think, just dropped his shield to rush forward and catch him. He was heavy, sagging into Steve’s chest and stumbling over his own feet, like the effort of punching through the glass and opening the door had taken everything he had at that moment. He was also shivering so hard that Steve could literally hear his teeth chattering.

“Okay, here we go,” Steve said, trying to half-lead and half-drag the man over to a chair. He managed to drop the Soldier into one, who slumped over his knees with hair hanging over his face.

“Here,” Nat said, thrusting a blanket at him with one hand, the other still holding a gun.

Steve flicked it open and wrapped it quickly around the man’s shoulders, who shuddered, fingers coming up slowly to curl around the edges and pull it close to himself. He said something in what sounded like Russian that Steve didn’t understand, low and guttural. Steve looked to Nat in askance.

“He said, ‘What is my mission?’” she said grimly.

Kneeling gingerly in front of him, Steve tried to see through the curtain of hair. “Hey. Hey, no mission, okay? We’re the Avengers. We want to help you.”

“So… cancel the red alert, or what? He looks cold. I feel like I should make him hot chocolate, not fight him,” Tony called, and there was the distinct sound of the plates of his suit separating so he could step out. Hot chocolate would actually be pretty useful right now, Steve thought wryly.

The Soldier said something again, muttered into his knees and getting lost in his hair. When Steve looked up to Natasha for translation, her face was pinched. “He says he was disoriented, and awaits our punishment for damaging the cryochamber. His new _owners_ , the Avengers.”

“Listen, no punishment, okay? You were just trying to get out, you didn’t know where you were,” Steve said gently. Lord knew he was familiar with the feeling.

The Soldier shivered, but finally raised his head so his hair fell away from his face. Steve stared, and could feel nothing but the blood rushing through his head for a long, awful moment.

“Bucky?” he whispered.

Because it was, and there was no mistaking – no matter how many times he blinked, or told himself he was seeing things wrong. It was Bucky. With long hair and bags under his eyes and sallow skin, but definitely Bucky – last seen plummeting from a train into the ravine below.

Bucky stared at him, gaze wandering over his face without recognition, and flicked an uncertain glance at Natasha, then back to Steve.

“Who the hell is Bucky?” he asked in perfect, unaccented English.

*

Steve had to go out into the hallway for a minute to hyperventilate.

It was Clint that followed him out – they’d never been particularly close, or even worked any non-Avengers missions together before Shield had gone down with its helicarriers in the Potomac – but now he clapped a hand on Steve’s shoulder and squeezed.

“You sure?” he asked simply, because American history was very clear on what the name _Bucky_ meant to Captain America.

“It’s him. It’s him, Jesus, he doesn’t know his own name but it’s him,” Steve gasped out, desperately trying to slow his panting breaths.

“Right. We know what was in the Winter Soldier files, the kind of shit they did to his mind,” Clint said, and it was suddenly very clear why he’d been the one to follow Steve out. “So he doesn’t know himself, and he doesn’t know you. Maybe he’s still in there, who knows? They had him for over thirty years – I don’t think a blow to the head is going to bring him round. But he still needs you now.”

Steve started nodding, feeling his breathing start to ease. Clint was right. Whatever had happened to Bucky, if there was any hope of bringing him back, Steve was the most qualified person in the world to help him.

“So I know you wanna fall down and lose your shit, but you _can’t_ , got it?” Clint continued. “He may never be the man you knew, and he may never remember you. But you are the one person who really cares that he gets to be his own man again. You clear?”

“Clear,” Steve said quietly. Clint gave his shoulder another squeeze before dropping his hand and turning away.

“Good. Get back in there before Tony pries his arm off with a crowbar.”

“Clint?” Steve called as he was walking back to the lab. “Natasha got you back to yourself, but we all cared. It mattered.”

Clint nodded without turning around, and then went back in the lab.

When Steve followed, he found Bucky actually holding a mug of hot chocolate, staring down at it in confusion, the blanket still wrapped around him. Natasha stood by his side, and while her weapons were holstered she was still very obviously on her guard. Clint had kicked back in an office chair and looked like he was napping. Bruce had returned – by the looks of it, he and Tony were running some kind of surreptitious scans on Bucky that were either so non-invasive as to be undetectable, or they just didn’t bother him. Steve picked up the loose sweats they’d left piled on a table – it had been in the files that the Winter Soldier was naked during the cryofreeze process.

“Bucky?” he called gently, but Bucky didn’t look up. Steve stepped up to him. “Hey pal, how’s the hot chocolate?”

Bucky did look up then. “This is not a nutrient shake,” he said, like they had made a particularly amateur mistake.

“Yeah, it’s to warm you up. Tastes good, that’s all,” Steve said. Bucky stared at him, and then cautiously sipped the drink. His face didn’t change, but he did promptly gulp the rest down. Then he simply thrust the empty cup in front of himself.

Steve and Natasha stared at him, then each other, before Natasha gave a put-upon sigh and took the cup.

“Want some clothes?” Steve tried next. He shook out the soft sweatpants and held them up. Bucky stared at him like he was insane.

“Those will not provide any ballistic protection on my mission. I am more likely to be compromised and fail,” he said slowly, like he was talking to a child. Nat actually huffed out a laugh at that, and then schooled her face when Steve cast a glare at her.

“They’re not – there’s no mission. You’re at ease, soldier. These are for warmth.”

Bucky pondered this for a bit, and then nodded. He stood – fluidly, all clumsiness from earlier gone – and dropped the blanket, standing completely naked without a bit of self-consciousness.

“Oh Jesus he’s – actually, hold up the metal arm away from your body?” Tony called behind them. Bucky did, without a moment of reservation, but frowned when it made a whining noise. He rotated his shoulder carefully, and several of the plates shifted with a grinding sound.

“Oh that’s – that’s really good, actually,” Bruce muttered. Steve looked over his shoulder – he could see a wireframe of the arm filling itself into the air in front of them.

“The weapon requires maintenance,” Bucky said, and by the time Steve turned back – shocked into stillness for just a moment by the phrasing of _the weapon_ – Tony was suddenly beside him.

“You have come to the right place, my Soviet icicle friend.”

“That is the legitimately the fastest I have ever seen you move, Tony,” Natasha said.

“Can we please let him put some pants on?” Steve asked, stepping in front of Bucky, feeling a red flush of embarrassment by proxy climbing up the back of his neck. Bucky took the pants he held out, and slipped them on easily.

Within a few minutes Tony had evicted a grumbling Clint from the office chair and had Bucky seated in it instead, arm laid across the table beside him. Bruce and Tony both leaned over it with fascination – they’d worked out how to make most of the plates on the bicep slide back and fold up, and were poking around in the interior. Steve found a stool, and dragged it to sit in front of Bucky.

“Do you know who I am?” he asked quietly. It was quite obvious he didn’t, of course, but somehow he had to ask the question, even though the answer was going to hurt.

“My new handler,” Bucky said, that same blank lack of recognition on his face. Steve had been right. It hurt like _hell_.

“My name is Steve Rogers. You’ve known me your whole life,” Steve said.

“Steve Rogers,” Bucky said, but it was like he was parroting back intel, not saying anything familiar.

“You’re Bucky Barnes. My best friend.”

“Codename: Bucky Barnes. You are my… mission?”

“No, you-” Steve stopped and sighed, rubbing his hand across his eyes. Beside him, something sparked in the metal arm, but Bucky didn’t even flinch. He tried again. “Your name is Bucky.”

“Codename: Bucky,” Bucky agreed. Good enough, Steve supposed, if it meant he would respond to his own name.

“Okay, try this – we are geniuses, by the way, so success is imminent,” Tony said a moment later, and closed up all the plates. Bucky stood, rolled his shoulder and flexed his arm – it whirred a little, but it was a healthy machine sound compared to the grinding.

Bucky noticed Tony was staring at him expectantly, and his eyes flickered from place to place – he seemed to recognize he was supposed to say something but was not sure what. “You are an excellent technician. It is worthwhile not to kill you.”

Steve almost laughed.

*

There was a hurried conversation in the hallway about exactly what to do with Bucky now – they’d been prepared to confine a hostile, but hell if Steve was going to lock Bucky up; he was going to stay with Steve. Nat, Bruce and Tony had seemed prepared for just this since the moment he’d recognized the Winter Soldier, and were instead trying to talk him into compromises.

“Full lockdown on your apartment at all times. Sub-dermal tracking device. No access to Jarvis or the internet,” Natasha tried.

“Apartment lockdown for a trial period, no tracking device because _what the hell Nat_ , and I’m in the middle of The Blacklist so we’re definitely keeping the internet. Restricted access to Jarvis, Tony I know you can manage it so he can’t influence any operational functions of the Tower or confidential information – if he even tried,” Steve countered.

“The Blacklist is _so_ good. What episode are you up to?” Tony asked.

“Focus, please,” Bruce said. “I want to know exactly what we’re working with – he has to be enhanced to have survived the cryo procedure. I’ll trade you full blood works and endurance testing for conditional apartment release, pending our analysis of how to stop him if he goes rogue.”

“I don’t even need sub-dermal, he’s got a metal arm. Tony puts a tracker in the metal arm for restricted Jarvis,” Natasha said.

“And internet, they’re kind of a package,” Tony added. He took in Natasha and Bruce glaring. “What?”

“You are supposed to be helping us negotiate Steve down here,” Nat said, and Tony shrugged.

“Seriously though, have you watched The Blacklist yet?”

“I’m concerned the Other Guy might make an appearance if anybody hurts James Spader, he’s a national treasure.”

“Focus!”

“Okay,” Steve said. “How about: lockdown over a four week trial period and while his physical capabilities are being established, followed by restricted release with a tracker over a probationary period. Tony sets up Jarvis, but we get full internet. Deal?”

“Deal.”

When they went back into the lab, where Clint and Bucky seemed to be having a staring contest, Clint called out, “I hope you kept internet, Cap, cause have you seen Blacklist yet? _So good._ ”

*

The asset – Codename: Bucky – followed his new American handler into an elevator that let them directly into a large apartment, many stories up. The elevator doors closed behind them, and he noted there was a loud thunk of multiple locks falling into place. They needn’t be concerned, of course – he was their asset, and knew that disobedience had brutal consequences. He did not know _how_ he knew, but he did.

He would be their creature, and his mission was to be his handler’s _best friend_. He didn’t know what that meant, but would do as he was told until mission parameters became clear.

His handler showed him around living quarters that included a spacious lounge and dining area, a kitchen of marble counters and steel appliances, and several bedrooms, each with an attached bathroom. Steve Rogers clearly slept in one, as the bed was unmade and the closet that led through to the bathroom had clothes hanging in it, but took the asset to another one that was unlived in.

“This is your room. Uh, you can use it how you want? Do you… do you want to shower?”

Thinking of a blast from a cold hose, Codename: Bucky flinched minutely.

“Okay, no, that’s a no then,” Steven Rogers said hurriedly. “A warm bath? Your hair needs a wash, probably.”

Codename: Bucky raised flesh fingers to touch at his long hair, feeling the grease and grit coating it. He followed Steve Rogers to the bathroom, where he leant over the bath and started running the faucet – steam curled off the surface of the pooling water, and he dumped some sort of creamy liquid into it that made bubbles form under the running water.

Warm.

Codename: Bucky stripped out of the shirt and pants he’d been given to wear, standing naked while Steve Rogers swirled the water with his hand and chattered about pleasant advances in modern technology that had resulted in never-ending hot water supplies and his deep appreciation of it. When he shut off the water and turned around, he startled and the skin of his neck and ears began to color pink.

“Okay. Ah. You’re naked already. That’s good. Want to climb in?”

The water was stunningly warm when Codename: Bucky stepped in – he stood for a moment with it up to his shins, trying to process, while Steve Rogers smiled at him. A smile was usually an indicator that he had disobeyed and pain was imminent, so Codename: Bucky hastily sat down. The water was even _better_ when he was sitting down, so he slid down until just his nose and eyes were above the surface. He blinked at Steve Rogers, who had sat down on the closed lid of the toilet.

“Pretty good, huh?” he asked, and fussed around with some bottles on the counter. “I got shampoo and conditioner but honestly your hair might take a couple of goes. You know how to do this?”

Codename: Bucky stared blankly at him.

“Yeah, didn’t think so. Immerse yourself so your hair is wet, and then sit up. I’ll rub the shampoo in and you can rinse.”

He did so, and when Steve Rogers knelt beside the bathtub and began to rub one of the lotions into his hair, with fingers scratching gently over his scalp, Codename: Bucky closed his eyes and breathed very, _very_ carefully. It felt good, and if Steve Rogers knew how good it felt he would no doubt stop.

“Okay, Bucky?” Steve Rogers asked after a minute and a half, fingers slowing almost to a stop.

“Optimal. There is no reason not to proceed,” Codename: Bucky croaked.

Steve Rogers gave him a long, measuring look, but his fingers started up again. “I hope it feels nice, having someone take care of you. Does it feel nice, Buck?”

Codename: Bucky swallowed heavily. If this was a trick, and he admitted to liking the sensation of Steve Rogers’ fingers scraping over his scalp only to have it stop and be punished, then his handler would know that he could be manipulated and tricked. Yet he could not lie to his handler for fear of even worse punishment.

“It feels good,” he said heavily, and tensed.

Steve Rogers just gave a hum of acknowledgement, and his fingers didn’t stop for another four blissful minutes. Then he said, “Lie back in the water and I’ll wash the suds from your hair. Then you can sit up and we’ll do it again.”

It seemed he wasn’t getting punishment, just more of the same. He lay back, and the feeling of Steve Rogers’ fingers combing through his hair in the water was different but still good. When he sat up and Steve Rogers started to rub his head with the lotion again, Codename: Bucky let himself relax into it, just a little. It felt good. All of it was good.

*

The next good thing was Steve Rogers putting two slices of bread together with cheese and ham and seeded mustard inside, slathering the outside with butter and frying them up in a pan while narrating what he was doing. Codename: Bucky sat at the kitchen counter on a stool wearing fresh underwear, pants and shirt, and he had a very soft, fuzzy towel draped around his shoulders for his wet hair to rest on.

Steve Rogers set the _grilled cheese_ in front of him with a glass of water and looked at him expectantly. Codename: Bucky looked down at the grilled cheese, now cut in half with melted cheese oozing out the middle, and touched it with his flesh fingers. It was too hot, so he switched hands, picking up one half carefully.

“Blow on it, if it’s hot,” Steve Rogers said, and mimed blowing. Codename: Bucky gave him a flat look, because he was an elite soldier who was capable of blowing air out of his mouth. Steve Rogers gave him a sheepish grin in return. “Shut up. Eat.”

Codename: Bucky blew on the grilled cheese, and when he took a careful bite he had to stop for a moment, just to fully understand the complexity of crispy fried bread and cooling melted cheese in his mouth. Then he began to chew, and there was the added bite of the mustard seeds bursting between his molars, and the smoky undertone of the carved ham. He stopped chewing, and gave Steve Rogers _A Look_.

“Right?!” Steve Rogers said with a laugh, and turned back to the stove to make more.

*

That night, Steve Rogers showed Codename: Bucky how to brush his teeth, standing beside him in the bathroom and brushing his own in striped pajamas, and then turned down the blankets on the obscenely large bed, and stepped close to Codename: Bucky and put his arms around him in a startling gesture of physical affection.

“Glad you’re here, jerk,” he said, and left for his own bedroom.

Codename: Bucky, wearing his own pajamas, climbed into the large soft bed that had many pillows, and switched the light off, and tried to remember if he had slept in a bed before. He couldn’t remember, although he seemed to know how one felt, the comfort of it. He drifted off to sleep thinking about it.

Sometime close to three in the morning, he woke from a dream – he didn’t know if he had ever had a dream before, or if this was really just a memory returning while he was not conscious. He climbed out of bed, went down the hallway, and pushed open the door to Steve Rogers’ room, which had been left open a crack.

“Bucky?” Steve Rogers asked sleepily, sitting up immediately.

“Did… did you used to be smaller?” Codename: Bucky asked uncertainly – because it seemed so unlikely, that his towering handler had worn the same face on a much smaller frame, and still called him ‘jerk’.

“Yeah. Yeah, Buck, I did. You remember that?” Steve Rogers asked. He had a thing that Codename: Bucky somehow recognized as _hope_ making his voice thready.

“Punk,” Bucky said simply, and ghosted away back to his own bed.


	2. Chapter 2

“Sam, I – he remembers me. _Sam_! He remembered I used to be small, he called me ‘punk’ like he used to-”

“Hold up, Steve. First, it is the butt crack of dawn here in DC just like it is in New York. Second, _who_ remembers you?” Sam broke in. Steve was practically vibrating with excitement into the phone.

“Bucky! Last night he – oh wait. I forgot you weren’t here for that. Um, remember how we were gonna defrost the Winter Soldier?”

Steve hurriedly caught Sam up – they’d spent so much time together after the fall of Shield, he’d genuinely forgotten Sam hadn’t been around yesterday when he’d recognized Bucky, instead spending a few weeks visiting family in DC.

“So he’s not hostile, but asks for a mission and is basically being obedient as hell right now?” Sam mused after a minute, which brought Steve back down to earth pretty quick.

“Yeah. I mean, he clearly remembers something. But he also seems to believe I’m his handler. It’s like he’s a blank slate, just waiting for us to give him a mission,” Steve said. “I don’t know how to get through to him that he has choices now, that he can say no. Scared I’m gonna accidentally tell him to do something he hates.”

“Want me to come up to New York?” Sam asked gently.

“Please. I’m outta my depth here Sam,” Steve said gratefully.

“I’ll book a flight.”

“No need. Tony won’t miss a quinjet.”

*

In the morning Steve Rogers came back to Bucky’s room and they brushed their teeth in front of the mirror again. Steve Rogers’ hair was wet, and Bucky had heard the shower before he came in, but Steve Rogers didn’t say anything about Bucky showering, for which he was painfully relieved.

Fresh clothes, a size too big, were laid out on the bed for him, and Bucky summarily stripped naked to change, which made Steve Rogers turn away, flushing pink. His attitude towards Bucky’s nudity was puzzling – how else could he visually identify injuries or flaws that might interfere with the mission?

In the kitchen, Steve Rogers had Bucky sit up at the counter once more while he cooked – gathering flour and milk and eggs and little containers and packets of ingredients together, and then mixing them together into a thin batter in a large bowl. He cooked the batter in circles speckled with dark spots, and when he had a stack on a plate he set it in front of Bucky along with a glass jug of syrup and cutlery. Bucky stared at the circles, and then stared suspiciously at Steve Rogers.

“These carbohydrate wafers do not include nutrient paste,” he said warily.

“Go on, try them – you pour the syrup over the top,” Steve Rogers encouraged.

Bucky poured the syrup over the circles; eyeing Steve Rogers for visual cues of how much was enough. Apparently _drenching_ the circles was enough. He cut a wedge, dripping in syrup, and hesitated again, but that didn’t result in punishment.

“Dark chocolate and cinnamon pancakes with maple syrup,” Steve Rogers said with a grin. “You’re gonna love it.”

Bucky took a bite, and sweetness exploded in his mouth – he couldn’t even define all the flavors. He chewed, and crunched down on the little brown speckles, chocolate – a darker, richer taste against the spicy cinnamon and sweet syrup. He stared at Steve Rogers. _Surely_ this wasn’t allowed.

“I’ll keep cooking – if your appetite is like mine, we’re going to go through a lot,” Steve Rogers said.

Bucky ate seventeen pancakes before he couldn’t eat any more.

Natasha Romanoff came in from the elevator as they were finishing their food, carrying a stack of parcels. Although she was dressed casually in a swinging skirt and light top, Bucky could see from the economical way she moved she would be a ferocious fighter. He could tell she had at least one handgun and six knives on her person, hidden even in her simple outfit.

“I went shopping online. Figured you couldn’t wear Steve’s hand-me-downs all the time,” she said, dumping the parcels on the table. Steve Rogers, looking sleepy and calm, pouted at her, and she grinned. “Come on Grandpa, let Bucky wear some twenty-first century clothes.”

Bucky wanted to open the parcels, his curiosity piqued, but he had not been told distinctly that was his right. Natasha Romanoff gave him a friendly smile and nod, and he edged a hand onto the table, towards a parcel. When she continued to smile and did not attempt to hurt him, he took one. It was soft and wrapped in a durable plastic, which he tore through easily with his metal hand.

Inside were blue faded denim pants that looked tighter than would be practical in combat. Steve Rogers scrunched up his face at that. Another parcel had thin t-shirts with necklines that would show his collarbones at least, and words on them like ‘Led Zeppelin’ in stylistic fonts, or a mouth with a tongue extended that said ‘Rolling Stones’. There was a light leather jacket that would provide almost no ballistic protection, and underwear that looked liked soft tight shorts, as well as socks and red shoes that had a while star and white laces and said ‘Converse’.

“Until you can choose your own stuff Bucky, I thought you might as well look hot,” Natasha Romanoff said coyly. Bucky’s internal temperature felt normal, and he wondered how the clothing would change that.

“I’ll hardly recognize you Buck,” Steve Rogers said, and while his tone was light his face was downturned.

“You are… sad,” Bucky said awkwardly.

“A lot has changed since we were kids in Brooklyn. Including us.”

Bucky didn’t know what to make of that, so he took some of the clothes that Natasha Romanoff picked out and went to the bedroom as directed – apparently stripping off in front of her would have been inappropriate too.

When he was dressed, Bucky felt odd. The denim pants – jeans – were tight but soft, clinging to his thighs and buttocks. The shoes fit well, but he had only laced them halfway, a tiny rebellion. He wore a Led Zeppelin t-shirt because he liked the unusual font, and it was loose and soft and would slide to reveal almost all of one shoulder. It was an incredibly impractical outfit and he liked it. He shoved his hair away from his face and went back out to the living area.

Natasha Romanoff gave a long, low whistle. “I am a genius,” she said quietly to herself.

Steve Rogers was staring at Bucky, his mouth dropped open – and then he hastily closed it, flushing. “You look… you look real good Buck.”

Bucky liked that wide-eyed stare on Steve Rogers a lot.

*

After Natasha Romanoff came a man called Sam Wilson, whom Steve Rogers hugged in a way that gave Bucky a twinge of discomfort, deep in his gut. They sat facing one another at the dining table while Steve Rogers pretended to wipe the same spot on the kitchen counter with a cloth over and over again.

“So, Steve just wanted me to have a quick talk with you about how you might be feeling,” Sam Wilson said in a friendly way. “How are you feeling, man?”

Bucky thought for a moment. “Operational.”

“Okay. Let’s go back to this morning. You had pancakes. Nat brought you some clothes. How was that?”

Bucky tried to decide which answer would not result in punishment, but was unsure. “I am mission ready?” he tried.

“Sure. What _is_ you mission, Bucky?” Sam Wilson asked. He did not seem impatient or angry about Bucky’s answers, which was good.

“Codename: Bucky Barnes. Steve Rogers’ best friend,” Bucky said – he knew this one, at least.

“If Steve tells you to do something and you don’t want to do it, what happens?” Sam Wilson asked gently.

“Comply,” Bucky said immediately. Steve Rogers winced, still wiping circles on the kitchen counter.

“Steve – none of us – wants you to do something that will upset you.”

“Like the shower, Bucky,” Steve said quietly. “You don’t like the shower, so it’s okay to have a bath instead. Because that’s what _you_ want.”

Bucky looked between them, unsure.

“You can say if you want something. We really want to know if something upsets you. Because, like saying if you _want_ something, you are also allowed to say if you _don’t_ want something. You are always allowed to say no,” Sam Wilson said, leaning forward earnestly.

“I can say no,” Bucky said, trying it out.

“Even if… even if that means you don’t want to be my friend,” Steve said.

“Mission parameters,” Bucky objected.

“You can say no to your mission, Bucky,” Sam Wilson said firmly. “You can say no, and nobody will hurt you. You can decide what you want now.”

Bucky breathed fast and deep, turning this over in his mind. Mission parameters were to be Steve Rogers’ best friend, even if those parameters were ultimately unclear. Steve Rogers had once been smaller and called him ‘jerk’ then too. Steve Rogers had brushed his teeth side-by-side with Bucky in the bathroom, and scratched his fingers over his scalp in the bath. Steve Rogers made him food and then watched to see how he liked it.

“Mission – accepted,” Bucky said, trying to catch his breath and curling his hands into fists on his thighs. “Want. I _want_. Steve Rogers’ best friend.”

“Okay, okay – this is something you want, that’s real good you could tell us that,” Sam Wilson said soothingly.

“Thank you, Bucky,” Steve Rogers said, looking a little damp around his eyes. “Thanks for telling me.”

“Just remember – Steve wants you to tell him when you don’t like something, or you want to say no. That’s part of the mission, okay? Saying what you feel,” Sam Wilson said.

Bucky nodded. Mission was accepted. He was being given direction to make choices for mission outcome at his discretion. He could say no.

*

Steve and Sam watched Bruce running endurance tests on Bucky from a glass-paneled control room that overlooked the gym. Right now Bucky was on a treadmill Tony had modified for Steve’s use – wearing only running pants, with small sensors dotted all over his chest. He was running at a pace that most regular humans could never attain or maintain, and while he’d been at it for an hour he wasn’t even breaking a sweat. The way Steve ran.

“You think he got the serum?” Sam asked after a while, and Steve gave a one-shouldered shrug.

“Some bastardized version of it. Zola experimented on him, in Italy. Afterwards he was… well, he was different. Must have been how he survived the fall.”

“He will probably never be the man you knew,” Sam said, because while he was always caring and gentle about it, he always laid out the truth.

“I know. But he’s… he’s Bucky. Some part of him still is. That’s enough for me,” Steve said. Below them, Bruce was making notes on his tablet, occasionally looking up at Bucky, who ran with a calm, centered look on his face, utterly focused on his task. “I watched a documentary on the bombs dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima a while ago. In the blast radius, sometimes a… a person blocked the bleaching effect of the radiation. So the person was vaporized, but a shadow was left behind, on a bridge or a wall – their shape, their _outline_ , when they were completely gone. It’s called a nuclear shadow.”

“If you’re implying the man down there is like a nuclear shadow, then that is seriously fucking dark, man,” Sam said dryly.

“No, I’m saying I can’t _accept_ he is nothing more than a shadow. That the person I know is – is _vaporized_. He’s still there, just not in the ways you might expect,” Steve said.

“He wants to be around you, that’s for sure,” Sam said with a smile, and bumped Steve’s shoulder with his own.

“I think… I think nobody in the world has been nice to him since 1945,” he said gruffly. “Has just showed him some basic human decency. He woke up like a blank slate, Sam, asking for a mission. He called his arm a _weapon_ and he talks like he’s a walking field report. They tried to make him nothing – less than nothing – but he remembered. Even if he only ever remembers that one thing, it’s enough, because they didn’t win. They didn’t break all of him.”

It looked like Bruce was finishing up with Bucky – using the treadmill controls to bring his speed down slowly. Bruce looked up at Steve and gave a little salute to tell him they were done for the moment, and Sam gave Steve a punch on the shoulder.

“I’m gonna go bug Tony about my wings and maybe get out in the city for a bit. You should think about getting out every now and then too – don’t lose yourself in this,” he said, but softened his words with a smile. “Go get your boy, then.”

“Yeah,” Steve said, and smiled back, feeling that swooping, fluttering hope that he’d felt when Bucky had come into his room the night before return. “Thanks. For everything.”

“Shut up, sap.”

Sam pulled him into a hug, and Steve turned his head to look down in the gym in time to see Bucky look up at them, a frown on his face.

*

Bucky felt mildly exerted and was happy to return to Steve Rogers’ living quarters. Steve Rogers pottered around for a bit, getting them a drink of water each and studying the contents of the refrigerator with no clear intent to get anything. Bucky hesitated behind him.

“Sam Wilson is your friend,” he said finally, and Steve Rogers turned away from the refrigerator.

“Yeah? I mean, we met last year; he helped me out of a tight spot. He’s a good man,” Steve Rogers said with a smile.

“Bucky – I am. Your friend?” Bucky asked haltingly.

“Yeah Buck,” Steve said, coming around the counter to take Bucky’s flesh hand in his two warm ones. “You’re my best friend. Since we were kids. Nothing can change that.”

Bucky thought about this, thought about what both Steve and Sam had said to him earlier. The concept of ‘want’ was difficult for him to parse – as the asset he did not have wants, only instructions. It was possible this was a trick, although seemingly nothing had been so far. He decided to test it.

“Bath,” he said, and then frowned, because that had not come out as he’d intended. He looked down at where Steve Rogers still held his flesh hand. It was nice. Comforting.

“A bath sounds good. Want me to show you how to run the water?” Steve Rogers asked with a bright smile.

“Want. Steve Rogers – my hair?” Bucky tried again. He could feel himself flushing with itchy embarrassment, although he was not entirely sure of the reason. He took a deep breath. “Will you – you wash my hair?”

“You want me to wash your hair because you like how it feels?” Steve Rogers asked quietly. His face was doing a painful thing, as though he had only just noticed something that hurt.

“Yes.”

“Bucky, did anybody ever just hold – no, I suppose not. Do you like this? When I touch you?” Steve Rogers asked, holding up their joined hands, and Bucky nodded jerkily. “I’ll wash your hair for you Buck, but first, can I hug you?”

Bucky tried to work out some tactical advantage for Steve Rogers to hold him before some kind of attack, but Steve Rogers knew the strength of his metal arm – Bucky couldn’t be constrained in such a way easily. But then, Steve Rogers seemed unlikely to attack right now – he was being warm and gentle, his face open and honest.

_Couldn’t lie to save your eternal soul, Stevie._

“Accepted,” Bucky blurted. Steve Rogers had been Stevie once. Or simply Steve.

Steve released their clasped hands, and moved in slowly for what ended up being a deeper, more engulfing hug than the one from the day before, or the one Bucky had seen Steve give Sam Wilson. He seemed to know exactly how to get his arms around Bucky best, and drew him in so they were chest-to-chest and their cheeks were pressed together. Bucky could feel their hearts beating against one another in time, and it was excellent.

“Hug. Yes. _Want_ ,” he said reverently, feeling overcome, and then felt something amazing – the deep rumble of Steve’s laugh through his chest.

*

Bucky was in the blissfully hot water of the bath before it finished running, which made Steve laugh again. He poked at the mountains of bubbles with a metal finger, half-listening while Steve told him what each bottle of lotion and soap was for. He’d noticed that Steve had averted his eyes when Bucky’d removed his clothes, and gone pink around his cheeks and ears again. He wondered if it was because of the nudity, or because it was Bucky. If they’d known one another in that vague period Bucky now knew must have occurred before he was the asset, then Steve might be uncomfortable with Bucky being naked for that reason.

“You are nervous,” Bucky interrupted when Steve told him about the shampoo for the third time. He reached out and flicked off the faucet when Steve was quiet and motionless too long.

“Washing your hair,” Steve said, and cleared his throat. “It’s intimate. The first occasion, you needed someone to help you. This time, you asked. There’s a subtle distinction in there.”

“Mission rejected?” Bucky asked. He scooped a handful of bubbles up and then squished them in his fist.

“No! I mean, I’m happy to. It just… yeah, it makes me nervous. I don’t want to do anything wrong.”

Bucky turned his head to look at Steve with incredulous slowness. “You cannot do _wrong_ ,” he said flatly. This made Steve wince.

“Course I can, Buck. I do things wrong all the time, always will probably. I’ve sure as hell done wrong against you before.”

Bucky struggled with the conflicting ideas in his head, ducking his face down while he thought – Steve was his handler, his handler was always right and therefore could not be wrong; but Steve said he had done wrong before, and could in future. That of course looped around itself, because if Steve said he could be wrong… then he _couldn’t be wrong_ about that.

He looked up at Steve, wide-eyed. “If you cannot be wrong, unless you say you are wrong… my programming is flawed.” he said, knowing very well it could lead to a wipe. But Steve just gave him a ferocious, pleased smile.

“Yeah, Buck. It’s flawed. You don’t have to be what they made you.”

*

Bucky thought about that late at night, tucked in to his disturbingly soft bed. Steve had washed his hair – Bucky had tried to hold in the little sounds of pleasure the feeling of Steve’s fingers scraping over his scalp caused – and he had spent a long time lying back in the water, knees up, with Steve running his fingers through his long hair in the water. Smiling at Bucky.

They had eaten, and watched a ‘documentary’ on the large screen while sitting on the couch. Bucky had sat with his knees drawn up to his chest, intently focused on the King Penguins on the screen, but noticed Steve did not pay much attention to the screen, instead balancing a sketchbook on his knees and drawing, his eyes frequently flicking to Bucky.

Bucky closed his eyes in the dark, and behind his eyelids saw the smaller Steve Rogers, knees drawn up with a sketchbook balanced on them, a pencil in his hand. His hair fell soft and loose over his forehead, and afternoon light poured through a grimy window. The scene changed, and he saw Steve – now bigger but hair still soft and loose – wearing something that looked somewhat like combat gear, only in colors of red, white and blue that were not conducive to camouflage. The Steve in his mind’s eye grinned at him, smudging at his drawing with his thumb. Even without seeing it, Bucky knew what was on the paper.

This time Steve’s bedroom door had been left open, and Steve sat up the moment Bucky stepped silently into the doorway.

“You used to draw me. Lots of things. But always me,” he said as Steve sat up, and Steve beamed at him sleepily.

“Yeah. I – you always let me. Still okay?”

Bucky nodded silently, and went back to his bedroom to lie down in his enormous, empty bed. He felt displaced and alarmed by the day and the memories (memories?) that followed. His programming was flawed, and it seemed it wouldn’t be updated. His mission was to be Steve Rogers’ best friend, but parameters remained unclear. Steve was his handler, yet evidently emotionally compromised. He could not be the asset and also have wants and choices, the right to say no. But the mission required just that.

Bucky went to sleep thinking this over, and what or who exactly he was supposed to be.

*

“I think he’s breaking his programming,” Steve said. He, Sam, Clint, Bruce and Tony were gathered for an impromptu meeting in the control room overlooking the training room, while Natasha ran tests with Bucky. So far, he had broken a series of instruments designed to test his grip strength for his metal hand, while Natasha laughed.

“Already?” Bruce asked with interest.

“He’s not only established clear memories of me, he’s identified a flaw in his programming – that if I am his handler and thus always right, then I am right even when I say I’m wrong,” Steve explained.

“A classic paradox of argument. Good work, Soviet Hydra,” Tony snorted.

“They probably didn’t have many concerns about their handlers wanting to be friends with the Winter Soldier,” Sam said, and Clint gave a snort of amusement.

“Looks like you’re the blow to the head he needed, Cap,” Clint said, and Steve gave an embarrassed smile.

“The scans we’ve been able to take of his brain activity have been limited by not, you know, putting the super soldier with the metal arm into a small noisy tube for tests,” Bruce said calmly, watching Bucky punch something made to measure the power of his blows and, of course, break it. “However we have been able to identify clear regenerative activity in his cerebral cortex. It’s possible he’s regaining a sense of identity and memories as his brain begins to heal the scarring there.”

“All right. So our new pet assassin has the potential to be reintegrated as a real boy – what next?” Tony asked.

Everybody turned to look at Sam.

“Okay, first – I am in no way qualified for this,” Sam said with a noisy sigh of irritation.

“You gonna put the Winter Soldier in a room with a psychotherapist right now?” Clint asked with a smirk.

“Point,” Sam acknowledged. “So it’s my decidedly _unprofessional_ opinion that continued socialization will probably help him to adapt. Being around Steve is obviously a good influence – he’s thinking independently of his programming and regaining memories – but more than that, he should be around a variety of people who demonstrate at every turn that he is safe and his free will is encouraged.”

“Avengers slumber party!” Tony said gleefully, clapping his hands together, and everybody groaned – Steve turned on his heel and left the room, followed by the others, while Tony glared. “What! Hey. Anything to help an undead war hero, right guys? _Guys_?”

*

“My handler is emotionally compromised,” Bucky told Natasha Romanoff as he broke yet another instrument – this one to test the strength of his individual fingers perhaps, he thought.

“Steve?” Natasha Romanoff asked in that deliberately casual way that he recognized all too well. She had been like him at some point, he decided. Capable of wearing a human face, but hollow on the inside. He didn’t think she was hollow any longer, just able to don the mask to fit expectations.

“My handler, Captain Steve Rogers,” he confirmed, and took a deep breath. He had to report to someone. Had to see what would _happen_. “He has encouraged me to go against his commands at my own discretion. My _own_. I outlined a flaw in my programming and he expressed pleasure at the concept. He has an emotional attachment to Codename: Bucky. His mission parameters, ‘best friend’, are counter to my intended use as a weapon.”

“Yes,” Natasha Romanoff agreed. Bucky waited for more, but when she didn’t say anything, dropped his hand away from the delicate instrument he’d mangled.

“He does not want me to be a weapon? He is emotionally compromised,” Bucky insisted.

“Why would he be emotionally compromised?” she asked, and Bucky looked away, turning from the table of machinery he’d destroyed to sweep his gaze over the training room and the control room above, where Steve and his subordinates were filtering out.

“He is attached,” he said finally, knowing it was just a repetition of what he’d already said, and inadequate.

“To whom?”

“The Winter Soldier?” Bucky tried, knowing it was wrong. Natasha shook her head, and he huffed an irritated breath. “To Codename: Bucky. Best friend.”

“What does ‘best friend’ mean?” she asked.

“Parameters unclear.”

“You know they’re not,” Natasha said gently, and he folded his arms over his chest, hunching in protectively.

“Brush teeth in the bathroom together, morning and night. Eat previously untested foods with little nutrient value. Watch King Penguins. Instructions to defy commands!” Bucky said in a rush, and then closed his eyes, seeing smaller Steve Rogers with the sketchbook, drawing him – yesterday, years before in combat, and long before that too, when he was small. “Together. Always together.”

When he opened his eyes, Natasha was giving him a smile, a real smile, one that was small and kind and warm, all at once. He didn’t break her gaze, even as Steve bounded into the room.

“Hey. Everything okay? Wanna try burritos?” Steve asked, looking only at Bucky, even though Natasha was right there.

“What are burritos?” he asked, and Steve beamed at him.

“You’re gonna love them. I had to learn to make them because buying so many was gonna send me broke. I can’t wait to see your face.”

Bucky gave Natasha a meaningful look – _emotionally compromised_ – but she just quirked a brow at him in amusement.

“Parameters?” she asked, and he gave a short nod.

“Clear,” he said. Steve looked between them in confusion.

“Did I miss something?”

*

Burritos were amazing. Bucky ate nine.

*

Life settled into a sort of holding pattern, and Steve stopped holding his breath, waiting for everything to go to hell and Bucky go back to being dead 70 years ago. Per Sam’s recommendation, the other Avengers started hanging out in Steve’s apartment fairly frequently, often just going about their every day tasks and routines, only now including Bucky. Natasha frequently took Bucky for his ongoing endurance tests with Banner, gradually working up to sparring with him for an estimation of his fighting capabilities.

Watching them whirl around each other in a flurry of fluid kicks and blows, Steve couldn’t help but think how beautiful they were together, how they complemented each other perfectly, like two halves of a whole. It caused an uncomfortable twinge in his chest, and he knew he was overcompensating by cooking more and more elaborate meals for Bucky, just to see the look of startled pleasure on his face.

Meanwhile, Tony and Clint seemed to be working on a blatantly made up project to enhance Clint’s arrows and quiver, but Steve appreciated it because they were working on it at his kitchen table. Bucky was still wary around anyone who wasn’t Steve or Sam or Nat, but did sit at the table and watch intently as they assembled and disassembled various parts, all the while arguing good naturedly.

Bruce would sit with Bucky and watch documentaries on the Mars rovers or rare flightless parrots in New Zealand – running a constant murmur of commentary about evolution or the physics of landing a small vehicle on another planet, and feeding him trail mix. Bucky once made him watch the moon landing with him 32 times in a row – Steve counted.

Sam came to just hang out, to eat Steve’s cooking and sass him, and to occasionally work in gentle but firm reminders about Bucky’s consent (and its inviolability) into the conversation. Bucky was comfortable around Sam, but Steve noticed he would stiffen up like a board whenever Sam, in his casually tactile way, would slap Steve on the shoulder or draw him in for a hug.

It was nice, in a way, just to have the others around without the world ending or Shield collapsing around his ears. Tony grumbled loudly and often that he’d created a _communal_ floor for just this reason, but it had always seemed idiotic to Steve to go find breakfast six floors away when he could eat in his own kitchen, still wearing pajamas. He supposed the issue was solved for _him_ at least – it was his kitchen that he found Clint grimly clutching a mug of coffee in while Nat threw Froot Loops at his head one morning, anyway.

At the end of the day though, whatever Avengers had been lingering in the apartment, watching documentaries or old I Love Lucy episodes (sitcoms were the only fictional shows they all deemed suitable for the Winter Soldier at this point) cleared out, and Bucky and Steve would be left alone. Bucky would silently go into the bathroom to start running the water in the tub, and Steve would brace himself for the ordeal ahead. Not because he disliked washing Bucky’s hair, oh no.

Because he _loved_ it. And that was becoming a problem.

*

Tony Stark had given Bucky a cell phone. He hadn’t really provided any instruction, besides informing Bucky that their numbers were all programmed in so he had no reason not to call to say he cared (whatever that meant). Bucky found his metal fingers worked just fine on the touch screen, unlike on Steve’s tablet where he liked to watch recordings of shuttle launches on NASA’s YouTube channel. YouTube was about the extent of Bucky’s technical proficiency, so he poked at the phone while he and Bruce sat slumped on the couch, watching a show about men on boats catching very large crabs for inexplicable reasons. Steve was downstairs in the gym. He’d started exercising for many hours a day, often rushing off first thing in the morning when Bucky emerged from the bedroom, bare-chested – even though he’d just _been_ for a run with Sam.

Bucky poked at Bruce’s name on the call option. At the far end of the couch, Bruce’s pocket began making a tinkling noise, gradually increasing in volume. Bruce pulled his phone from his pocket, frowned at the display, and swiped it.

“Hello?” he answered, and then pulled it away from his ear at the echo of his own voice.

“Phone,” Bucky said, holding up his in explanation.

“Cool. Now I have your number,” Bruce said, ending the call on his end. He tapped at his phone for a second, and a moment later Bucky’s phone dinged. It was a little message of a coiled pile of shit with a smiling face on it. Bucky stared incredulously at his phone for a moment, and then at Bruce.

Bruce started laughing.

*

Nat introduced him to the camera function. And filters for the camera function. Bucky had the feeling that once, when he had been human, cameras were heavy things with film you loaded on a reel that cost a small fortune to develop. This camera was not only instant and capable of saving thousands of photographs he could look at any time he liked, but Steve explained that _Tony_ had explained there was a wireless connection between the phone and the printer, so he could print _all of the photographs_.

Bucky took a lot of photographs of the city skyline. Then he took some photographs of the part behind and under his metal shoulder that he could usually only see by twisting around in the mirror. He took a photograph two inches away from Steve’s eyeball, which was as close as he could get before the camera could no longer focus.

He felt bad about forgetting to turn off the flash function though.

He printed off photographs of cups with coffee dregs in them and Mars rovers on the television, and printed photographs of Natasha’s delicate ankles and the refrigerator full of food and Steve with spaghetti hanging out of his mouth. Then he took photographs of the printed off photographs, all swirled together in a pile.

He guarded the phone fervently – not because Bruce texted him pictograms with emojiis or Clint sent him jokes that were not in any way funny, but because the phone had the camera, and all of the photographs. As long as he had the phone, he had _memories_ , just carried around with him, wherever he went.

His second favorite thing about the phone was that he could send Tony photographs of the back of his own head when he’d clearly not known Bucky was there. This would result in Tony cursing for a prolonged period and starting to always stand with his back to a wall. This was subverted when Clint decided to join the game, and would take photographs of the back of Tony’s head when Tony was carefully keeping Bucky in sight, and then send them to Bucky, who could _then_ send it to Tony. Who was starting to get deeply paranoid about the whole situation.

 _That_ was funny.

*

Bucky had heard Steve and all of the others talk to Jarvis before. Usually it was when they were in the gym, or the med bay where Bruce had him stand against a wall so Jarvis could scan the interface between his metal arm and flesh shoulder. Steve would mostly select their viewing using a remote, but sometimes requested Jarvis bring something up. Bucky noticed that Jarvis would interject into conversations in the training room, but not in Steve’s apartment.

It had not occurred to Bucky that _he_ could speak to Jarvis.

At least, not until one morning when Steve was at the gym for one of his apparently very urgent workouts, and Tony was sitting in the apartment at the kitchen table, fiddling with some tools and a bit of machinery, hands smeared with grease.

“Sir, you asked me to notify you when-” Jarvis said suddenly, making Bucky jump on the couch, where he was watching videos of cats knocking things off tables on his phone.

“Oh shit, already? You said two more hours,” Tony said, cutting Jarvis off. Bucky had observed that Jarvis never seemed offended by this. He still wasn’t entirely sure what Jarvis was, other than an omniscient voice in the ceiling.

“The regression testing improvements you implemented accelerated the construction period by twenty percent, sir.”

“Because I am a genius. Yay,” Tony said to himself. Then he looked at Bucky. Then at the elevator door. Then back to Bucky. _Torn_.

“I am self-sufficient and will remain inside the apartment,” Bucky said simply. It hadn’t escaped his notice that when Steve was not present, at least one other person _was_.

“I mean. You’re watching _cat videos_ ,” Tony said, like this explained everything. “Anyway, Jarvis can watch you. Just ask Jarvis if you need anything. It’s just my new suit is… anyway. Jarvis can give you what you need.”

Bucky sat in confusion as Tony all but ran to the elevator, the heavy locking mechanism sounding on the doors once he was gone. Bucky stared hard at the ceiling, trying to decide what and where Jarvis was. A computer of some kind, like the tablet or the phone – but everywhere in the building?

“Jarvis?” he tried cautiously.

“Yes, Sergeant Barnes?”

Bucky managed not to flinch.

“Codename: Bucky,” he said firmly.

“How can I help you, Bucky?” Jarvis asked pleasantly.

Bucky hadn’t thought that far ahead. He sat in silence for a while, phone and cat videos forgotten in his hand, contemplating this opportunity for intel. He had seen Steve ask Jarvis to display videos like the moon landing for him, and Jarvis had complied. Tony, wherever he was, would ask for information on what he was working on, or facts relevant to his conversation, or sarcastically ask Jarvis to record things Steve said that he found ironically amusing.

“Jarvis, who is Steve Rogers?” he asked finally.

“Abridged or complete biography?” Jarvis asked.

“Abridged.”

“Captain Steve Rogers was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1918…”

The abridged biography was still quite long, and Jarvis supplemented it with photographs and films on the television. There was skinny Steve, that inconsistent presence in Bucky’s sparse flashes of memory. And there was James Buchanan Barnes, who wore his own face in photographs, only with short hair and a winning smile and a left arm. Jarvis talked him through Project Rebirth to the rescue of the 107th in Italy, on to the demolition of Hydra bases across Europe and the tragic death of Bucky Barnes in the Swiss Alps, followed by the crash of the Valkyrie only a suspicious two weeks later.

And then, after that, was resurrection from the ice and the attack of aliens ( _aliens!_ ) on New York and the formation of the Avengers, followed two years later by the destruction of Project Insight and with it the downfall of Shield. When he asked about Bucky Barnes, he found the information Jarvis could provide was limited to a historical reflection of the Steve Rogers story, until his ‘death’ falling from a train. Bucky turned this over and over in his mind – he was much older than his appearance would imply, and had survived a fall that should have killed anyone else. He was also, according to history, still dead.

“Jarvis, who is the Winter Soldier?”

What he got was a rundown of hypothesis and conjecture from the 1950s until the 1980s, including a list of attributed kills – followed by a summation of the files Natasha had apparently provided Jarvis for translation. Bucky broke into a cold sweat as Jarvis calmly outlined what was done to him – the experimental procedures and torture, the lobotomies he had apparently _healed_ , the grafts and re-grafts of the metal arm until his physiology no longer rejected it, the drugs and mind wipes and programming.

That was how Steve found him a while later, hunched on the couch trying to make himself as small as possible, eyes glassily focused on grainy photographs of his own torture. Jarvis was still talking smoothly, recounting the various forms of punishment used on the Winter Soldier for failure to comply, when Steve emerged from the elevator.

“Jarvis, stop!” he said sharply, and everything went quiet and dark. Bucky tried to breathe steadily into his knees. Steve dropped down onto the couch next to him and pulled Bucky right into his chest in one of those wonderful, consuming hugs Steve was so good at.

“I don’t remember killing people, but I know that I did. And you’ve only ever saved people,” Bucky said into Steve’s sweaty t-shirt. Steve smelled good. He always smelled good, but even better when he was sweaty and un-showered from the gym. “Am I… am I _bad_?”

“No. No you’re not,” Steve said gently. “When you weren’t under their control, when you had free will, you always made the right choice. They didn’t _give_ you any choice, Buck.”

“I was a child, once?” Bucky asked hesitantly – the idea seemed unfathomable to him. Steve started carding his fingers through Bucky’s hair, nails scratching lightly over his scalp, which made him want to fall apart.

“Yeah. We were two Brooklyn boys. You always looked out for me, Buck. Looked out for anyone who needed it, really, but especially me. You’re good. You were good then and you’re good now.”

Bucky didn’t see what he did now that was good or bad or anything of import at all – he ate the food Steve made him and lived in Steve’s apartment, while Steve’s friends took turns watching him. Bucky burrowed deeper into Steve’s side.

“The other Bucky Barnes,” he said haltingly. Steve made a little noise of encouragement when he paused for too long. “I don’t think he’s coming back. It will just be me.”

“Oh Buck,” Steve said with a deep, sad sigh. “Buck, I’m not waiting for some other version of you to come back. I want you to get better, yes – but that means that I want you to feel _safe_ , to feel like your own man, to know that you’re the only person in control of your life. But I’m not waiting for the other guy to suddenly emerge and take over who you are.”

“But…”

“I’m not the little guy from Brooklyn anymore, just like you’re not him. Wishing the Bucky Barnes I knew then were coming back would be to ignore everything that’s happened to you. That’s not… it’s not how it works. Or how it even _should_ work.”

“Then how am I your best friend still?” Bucky whispered, lifting his face to look at Steve’s.

“Because while I’m not the little guy anymore, you _still_ remember him. That’s all. You remember the old me, and I remember the old you. And we’re still best friends.”

“You’re my best friend too?” Bucky asked in surprise, and Steve stared at him blankly for a moment.

“ _Yes_ I’m your… oh damn, Bucky, I’m an idiot for not saying it earlier. I’m your best friend, and you’re my best friend. To the end of the line.”

*

Steve had a very brief phone call with Tony.

“Tony, did you make adjustments to Jarvis’s access protocols for Bucky?”

“Course I did, Capsicle. He can’t request any strategic information about us, the Tower, or even enemy combatants. It’s pretty much foolproof.”

“It didn’t occur to you that you should restrict his access to all those Hydra files we have about _his own lobotomies_?”

There was a long silence on the line.

“Um,” Tony said.

Steve hung up.


	3. Chapter 3

Bucky dreamed of the train.

He woke up in the early hours of the morning and felt cold, so cold, despite the warm apartment and warm blankets. Steve was always warm, he knew, his metabolism heating his body like a furnace. Bucky rolled out of bed, teeth chattering, and slipped noiselessly up the hall. Steve’s door was open, and he sat up the moment Bucky ghosted over the threshold.

“Buck?” he asked, muzzy with sleep.

“Cold,” Bucky chattered, shivering uncontrollably, and Steve flicked the blanket back and patted the space beside him. Bucky lunged under the blankets, trying to bury his nose somewhere in Steve’s ribs and get his cold flesh fingers under his hip. Steve’s arms wrapped around Bucky, and he made soft comforting noises in his throat and rubbed his hands up and down Bucky’s back.

He drifted to sleep like that, breathing in the warm and familiar scent of Steve, who kept the cold at bay.

*

He woke at dawn – the windows still filtered by Jarvis to keep the early morning light from disturbing them – and Steve was still asleep, breathing through his nose with a slight whistle. Their limbs were all tangled together, and Steve had an arm flung over his waist.

Bucky had an erection.

He knew, vaguely, of the function, another of those things he did not know how he knew but still did, despite Hydra’s efforts to burn his brain into blankness. But he hadn’t had a full, achingly hard erection since Steve pulled him from the cryotube. Bucky lay very still, trying to decide what he was supposed to do about the situation and why it had happened. Partly simple biology, he decided – waking up next to a warm and attractive body.

Partly because it was _Steve_.

He slid slowly, carefully out from under Steve’s arm, replacing his body with a spare pillow that Steve snuffled at and pulled closer in his sleep. Silently Bucky slipped up the hall to his bedroom and into the bathroom, closing the door behind him. He contemplated the shower – he had explored it cautiously a few days before, running the water to discover it was warm with soft, heavy drops, nothing at all like the cold, stinging spray he remembered – but he hadn’t been able to step under the spray. Instead he turned the faucet on over the sink for a buffer of sound in case Steve came to the door.

Bucky carefully pulled his sleep pants down over his erection to mid-thigh. His cock was long and thick and flushed with blood, and bounced against his belly as he moved. He touched himself with his metal hand, running the tips of fingers up and down the tracery of veins.

It felt _good_.

He leaned over the sink, took his dick in his flesh hand and started to stroke, slow and sure – it made him gasp, made shivers of pleasure prickle over his skin, and he cupped his balls with his other hand, rolling them between metal fingers. That felt- oh, that felt _very_ good, and he started to jerk his cock faster, breathing hard and rolling his hips.

A picture of Steve’s mouth, red and wet, rose in his mind, followed by images that had to be from the past, from the other Bucky – Steve’s delicate collarbones over his thin chest, blond hair falling in his eyes. Steve now; all the golden curves of his muscular shoulders and chest, the pale pink of his nipples, the way his ass looked in the tight workout pants he wore.

Bucky came blindingly hard with a low moan, and slumped over the sink.

*

Tony came to the apartment that day and was quickly intercepted by Steve. They had a hushed conversation by the elevator, with a lot of hand waving on Tony’s part and a truly furious expression on Steve’s face. Finally Steve seemed to relent, stepping aside and crossing his arms over his chest, and Tony came over to where Bucky was sitting, watching a documentary about otters. Otters were amazing. They slept on their backs holding paws so they wouldn’t float away from each other. _Amazing_.

“So I maybe fucked up. You shouldn’t have access to that stuff about yourself, all the torture and general evil fuckery,” Tony said, actually looking quite serious for the first time since Bucky had met him. Bucky looked past Tony to give Steve a flat stare.

“The intel was necessary in absence of memory,” he said stiltedly. Steve raised his eyebrows in surprise.

“Because you are sure as shit your own man now, Buckaroo,” Tony said cheerfully – it sounded like an agreement, despite the unfamiliar phrasing. Steve said nothing, just huffed a sigh.

“Mission parameters – Steve is sometimes wrong,” Bucky said pointedly. Steve rolled his eyes and Tony laughed, and then drew a little black card from his pocket, holding it out.

“Anyway. My peace offering. Just because you’re stuck in the Tower while we all determine you’re actually an adorable kitten when you’re not being brainwashed, doesn’t mean you can’t have some fun,” Tony said.

Bucky took the card. It said ‘American Express’ on it, and had a long series of numbers and a chip. Underneath it had a name. “Mr _Borky Buns_ ,” Bucky read aloud, and looked up at Tony, who was trying not to laugh.

“Well I couldn’t use your real name – Bucky Barnes living at Avengers Tower with Steve Rogers? It’s a completely legitimate pseudonym.”

“You are _actually_ 12,” Steve said, but without rancor.

“It’s time to introduce you to online shopping. Whatever you want to order, priority shipping. You know what? We’ll just put you on Amazon and you can save whatever you like to a wish list. Jarvis, assign an intern or a minion or something to monitor the Borky Buns Amazon Wish List and go get him what he adds – we’ll get you everything today,” Tony said. Steve looked alarmed.

“Ms Potts specifically said I was not to assign any more Stark Industries’ staff to your ‘feelings of guilt and over-compensation acted out with inappropriately extravagant gift-giving, Sir,’” Jarvis replied, sounding very regretful.

“Priority shipping it is,” Tony said calmly, and grinned. “Steve _never_ lets us shop for him. C’mon, Borky, lets get you online.”

*

Shopping somehow became a group activity over the next several hours. Sam got him a music account for his phone and loaded it with ‘playlists’. Natasha helped him to choose more clothes that he liked – very close to the tight jeans and dangerously thin t-shirts she’d initially picked out for him, because he liked them, but also what looked like incredibly soft and roomy sweaters and chunky black boots and a swell looking pea coat.

“Hair products,” she told him, curled up next to him on the couch. “I’m going to change your life.”

“Search for ‘micro-fleece blanket’,” Bruce instructed later, leaning over Bucky’s tablet. A range of them came up, and Bucky selected a calming-looking blue one. Bruce nodded. “Okay, now order about fifteen of them. _Trust me_. Oh, oh – is that a micro-fleece snuggie? Get one for me.”

Tony pretended to be disaffected by all of the gadgets he guided Bucky through, but Bucky could see his eyes gleaming with excitement as he pointed out DSLR cameras that looked much closer to what Bucky’s patchy memory recalled of taking pictures. He also insisted Bucky get a miniature ‘slurpee machine’. Steve countered by putting a complicated juicer in his online cart.

“Xbox and Wii. You need Guitar Hero and Mario Kart to start with,” Clint instructed, making Natasha give a snort. “What? A modern education is incomplete without learning to play a fake guitar instead of a real one. Plus he has a _bionic_ hand. Imagine how good he’ll be on the frets.”

“You like to read, Bucky?” Sam asked, and thinking about it, Bucky thought he might have, once. “All right. You are going to love the Kindle. Holds thousands of books – your whole library in your hand. You got a lot of catching up to do.”

At some point someone put on a movie, one of the startlingly beautiful Pixar ones that Steve could watch in fascination for hours. Everyone was sprawled around Steve’s long, sectional couch, in the kitchen or seated at the table – Tony eating popcorn on the couch and making running commentary on the progress of computer animation to Steve. Bruce was in the kitchen kneading dough, a variety of exotic ingredients set out for making pizza, while Clint sat on the counter in avid supervision. Nat was next to Bucky, stealing popcorn from Tony and occasionally helping Bucky navigate the tablet. Sam was at the table, engrossed in his own tablet – apparently pre-loading Bucky’s Kindle account with books after he’d probed about what Bucky could remember reading once; Steve thought pulp science fiction and detective novels.

He looked around and realized that all of these people were in this room for him, and by extension, Steve. They wanted to help, wanted to acclimate him to this world where there was no more chair and no more mind wipes. Steve glanced up and caught Bucky’s gaze and smiled in a way that was both warm and automatic, as though he would _always_ smile when he saw Bucky. Bucky tilted his head and gave a significant look around the room, at the people who wanted to help – in a way they had never had help except from their family before.

Steve’s smile grew larger, and he gave a little nod, as if he’d caught Bucky’s thought out of the air and agreed. They were lucky. They were blessed.

*

Steve kept himself busy folding clean towels in the bathroom later that night, after they’d all eaten pizza and watched Breakfast at Tiffany’s and then finally dispersed when the hour had gotten late. It occurred to him that having Bucky here in the Tower had brought them all together in a way that battling aliens and dismantling Shield had not. Sure, they had fought together, invariably gravitated back to New York, trained and even hung out in little groups like he and Sam or Natasha and Clint. Bruce and Tony certainly spent enough time together.

Yet with Bucky here, what had started as supervision almost a month ago had somehow evolved into a kind of expected group socialization that was surprisingly easy to grow used to. Helping Bucky adjust and regain his personhood through caring interaction had deepened that care they had all naturally felt for each other – let it rise naturally to the surface instead of being forged painfully in battle.

Bucky sat in the bath now, idly scrubbing at his toes with a soapy loofah and casting curious glances at Steve. He made a show of rinsing the loofah of soap and hanging it from the tap, sitting very still amongst the bubbles that thankfully concealed most of him except for his shoulders and upper chest.

“You’ve been smiling,” Bucky said in that soft rasp of his, and Steve set down the last of the towels and leaned back against the counter to look at him.

“I’m happy you’re here. Happy my friends are here too, and that they like you. Mostly happy that you seem stronger and more _yourself_ every day,” he said with a shrug.

“I am not like him,” Bucky said sadly, as though Steve were confused.

“No – when I say ‘more yourself’, I mean more capable of making decisions without fear of punishment. More likely to express your wants and needs rather than trying to discern mine. I don’t want to be your handler; I want to be your friend.”

“I want… things,” Bucky said stiltedly.

“That’s good,” Steve encouraged, but Bucky shook his head, frustrated.

“I want things I don’t think I can have.”

“You can always ask. The worst that will happen is an answer of ‘no’.”

Bucky seemed to think this over while Steve knelt beside the bath to wash his hair – sliding back into the water, so his hair fanned around his face and his clear steel eyes fixed on Steve’s face. Steve tried to keep his face flat and neutral when Bucky sat up and Steve started to wash his hair, but it was difficult. It got more difficult every day.

Steve wanted things too.

*

Around two in the morning, Bucky appeared in his doorway, silent as ever – but something woke Steve nonetheless, and he sat up, blinking sleepily.

“I don’t want to sleep alone anymore,” Bucky finally said, almost a whisper.

Steve thought, _oh thank god_ , but didn’t say anything, just moved over and lifted the blankets in invitation.

*

Bucky learned to text. He liked it immensely.

*

 **Borky:** steeb

 **Borky:** why would autocorrect change it to steeb wth

 **Borky:** are you training

 **Borky:** steeeeeeeeb

 **Borky:** the blankets arrived. I am a burrito.

 **Borky:** please also buy ingredients for burritos for dinner

*

Bucky always woke before Steve did, which was a relief – he could sneak to the bathroom and take care of his erection without any awkwardness. Then he would go to the kitchen and make juice for the both of them, and investigate what new breakfast foods Tony had had delivered for them to try. There was an actual dumbwaiter in the kitchen for that reason.

The shopping had brought a wealth of new experiences – micro-fleece blankets were _excellent_ – but Bucky liked new foods best. Natasha seemed to be in an unspoken competition with Tony to provide the best pastries and treats. _Also_ excellent. Clint taught him how to use gaming consoles, and then swore bitterly when Bucky mastered the Guitar Hero controller immediately and started beating his scores. Surprisingly, it was Bruce who could wipe the floor with all of them in Mario Kart.

Bucky was aware that his month of probation had passed; Tony had inserted a tiny electronic tracker beneath one of the plates he couldn’t reach in his arm. Steve had asked if Bucky would like to venture out into the city, to the park or a museum, but Bucky had vehemently shaken his head. This apartment, this tower full of people who could both protect and disable him, felt far too safe. The thought of going outside made him feel dizzy and sick – it was a world full of people who might look at him and know he had once been only a _thing_. No.

Instead, other people in the Tower began to come to him; to join the relaxed socialization in Steve’s apartment that Bucky was entirely sure was no longer supervision. He met a man named Rhodey, who bickered with Tony and casually acknowledged Bucky without paying him any significant attention, which was good. He met Maria Hill, who looked him up and down with icy blue eyes and then challenged him to Mario Kart and kicked his ass.

There was a doctor named Helen Cho, who Bucky allowed to study the scarring around his metal arm and the place where the metal replaced the ball of his shoulder – she took careful scans and hummed with interest in a med bay, but in the comfort of Steve’s apartment did not act like a doctor at all, only a friend.

And there was Pepper.

Pepper was the kind of elegant dame Bucky thought he might have utterly lost his head over back in the day. Her innate strength and goodness seemed to glow from within her, and Bucky worshipped her from the moment they met – she brought him his father’s pocket watch that she’d found in the Stark collection. Bucky didn’t have any actual memories of it, only recognized it when she held it out to him and he found the weight of it familiar in his hand.

“Thank you. This means… more than you know,” Bucky said, cradling it in his palm. It was _his_ , and only _real people_ owned pocket watches.

Steve was somewhere in the apartment, possibly sketching in the third bedroom (which was beginning to look more and more like a studio as Bucky kept ordering him art supplies online). Pepper had come alone to introduce herself, and Bucky abruptly realized they were still standing in the foyer in front of the elevator.

“Would you like a Slurpee?” he blurted suddenly, because he fucking loved Slurpees and wanted to offer her the _best_.

“I would, actually,” Pepper said with a warm smile.

Steve found them an hour later on the couch, Bucky with his head on Pepper’s lap, half-unconscious with relaxation as she ran her fingers through his hair. They had been talking on the couch, Slurpees finished, while Bucky turned the pocket watch over and over in his palm, almost vibrating with the urge to – to _hug_ her, or touch her face or press his forehead to her feet or something. It was not a sexual urge at all – he knew what _that_ felt like – but rather that he wanted her goodness and excellence to rub off on him somehow.

She was perceptive, because perfect humans usually are, and drew him into a deep hug that made him give a happy sigh. She’d started stroking her fingers through his hair then, and somehow he’d ended up with his head in his lap while she spoke about her life; Tony and Iron Man and Mandarin, and he soaked it all up with the golden haze of her presence.

Steve, on his way to the kitchen, halted in surprise at the sight, and stared long enough that Bucky started to worry he’d get the wrong idea. Instead he smirked, pulled out his phone and took a photo.

“I have to send this to Tony,” he said, pressing buttons on his phones. “He’s not the only one who can have a deep and meaningful bromance.”

*

 **Tin Can:** DO YOU KNOW HOW LONG IT TOOK ME TO GET HEAD SCRITCHES FROM PEPPER AND YOU GET THEM IN FIVE MINUTES?

 **Borky:** I am adorable it is a gift

*

Bucky found porn.

Steve had gone out for a run with Sam and the apartment was unusually empty – planets aligning and various inhabitants of the Tower all having tasks at the same time. Tony had been joking with Rhodey, something about single life and his hand and the consolation of porn. So Bucky sat in his room with the door locked and his tablet and googled ‘porn’.

He had to refine his search.

Sam had been quite patient, teaching him how keywords worked, how you could refine searches by excluding or including certain phrases. So Bucky tried again. He thought about what he actually wanted to _see_ , and searched ‘romantic porn’. This yielded better results, and he clicked through several sites that had free previews of men and women having sex; he was interested but not overly so. A lot seemed very degrading to the women still. He thought about a conversation about the history of women’s rights he’d had with Maria, and tried searching ‘feminist romantic porn’.

Much more interesting – a lot of websites devoted to lesbian couples, some to heterosexual couples who had a more equal interaction, and some devoted to heterosexual porn where the woman was dominant. Bucky palmed his hardening dick through his pants. Still not… not what he wanted though?

He searched ‘romantic gay porn’.

_Jackpot._

*

 **Borky:** What time are you coming home

 **Steeb:** Should be about 4. Why? Anything wrong?

 **Borky:** Nothing wrong just wondering

 **Borky:** Tell me if you think you might be back early though

*

Bucky was pretty sure that if he didn’t have the healing factor of the serum his dick would have blisters; he’d been jacking off so much. The porn was… the porn was so incredibly arousing and yet instructional, too, in terms of how the mechanics of sex worked. He had favorite videos bookmarked on his tablet, and whenever Steve was out of the apartment would lock himself in his old bedroom to watch them and come so hard and so often he couldn’t see straight.

He’d bought toys too, delivered to ‘Borky Buns’ in non-descript packages. Steve was so used to Bucky having odd little finds from Amazon delivered that he didn’t blink an eye at a few extra packages. And meanwhile Bucky experimented – slicking his fingers up to probe his ass only, at first. He’d made a truly undignified noise the first time his fingers scraped against his own prostate.

From there he’d graduated to plugs and dildos, lying naked on the bed, watching porn and fucking himself back onto them with long groans of pleasure. His favorite video had one muscular blond man fucking a slightly shorter dark-haired man – one of the videos in the flavor of romantic porn, where they held each other and kissed and fucked frantically like they were desperate for each other. Bucky was _entirely_ aware of why he liked that one, why it could make him come a couple of times before it was halfway through.

He had honestly, genuinely considered simply handing the tablet with the video loaded up to Steve and saying, “I want this,” but decided he needed more intel.

When Steve and the others collectively decided he was ready to move onto films that weren’t documentaries and Disney movies, he found romance was a major plot point of all kinds of films, whether it was action movies or comedies.

_Intel._

*

“I want to come with you tomorrow. On your run,” Bucky told Steve one night in the bath.

Steve sat back from where he’d been combing some kind of fancy conditioning treatment Nat had recommended from Bucky’s hair. He was making a supreme effort to keep his eyes away from the water’s surface, because Bucky’s favorite pass time in the water now seemed to be destroying all bubbles as quickly as possible. Leaving Steve with a clear view of his lithe, naked body.

“With me and Sam? Out… outside the Tower?” he asked carefully.

Bucky nodded, rolling his shoulders forward and pointing his hands in front of him in a long stretch, making the smooth muscles of his back ripple under his skin. Steve stared. He was _so_ beautiful; even the scarring around his metal shoulder just seeming to accentuate it.

“You say I should try and get out in the world,” Bucky said.

Steve did say that.

“We, uh… it’s awful early to get up,” Steve said, and winced at the stupidity of that statement. Bucky was up before him every morning without fail, disappearing into the bathroom in his bedroom for reasons Steve couldn’t fathom.

Bucky gave him a flat sideways stare. “I want pancakes after _our_ run. With the chocolate chips and syrup. And bacon. And lemon wedges.” He thought for a moment. “And waffles.”

“Okay Buck,” Steve said, smiling because he couldn’t help himself. “You come running in the morning, then we’ll have a breakfast of pure sugar and a little protein.”

*

Running was boring.

They started out walking through the city streets to the park, because Sam said nobody was allowed to go super soldier and mow people down when it wasn’t an emergency, and besides that it was just plain showing off. Bucky was wearing some of Steve’s running pants and running shoes, but had to stick to one of his own t-shirts because his metal shoulder was more of a threat to the seams of Steve’s t-shirts than even Steve’s ridiculous pecs were. Bucky put a hoody over the top because he had a normal sense of temperature, while Steve just went out into the morning chill in his t-shirt like his internal thermostat was broken.

“If you say ‘on your right’ even once I will legit destroy your Slurpee machine,” Sam told him as they did a few stretches outside the park, and Steve grinned. Bucky stared at Sam in horror. He didn’t even know what that _meant_. Sam was threatening _Slurpees_.

They set off through the park at an easy pace along one of the winding tracks away from the main walking paths – Bucky knew from Steve that he generally kept pace with Sam for a few miles, then would take off at a much higher speed, loop around one of the reservoirs a few times, and rejoin Sam on the tail end of his run.

Sam and Steve both kept casting him worried glances, as though being outside would send him in to some kind of anxiety attack, but Bucky found it didn’t bother him. There was nobody around, he had a long sleeve mostly obscuring his metal arm, and everything was pretty nice. Nice trees, nice fresh air, nice birdsong.

But boring.

He got bored after about two miles, slogging steadily alongside Sam and Steve. Sam was keeping his breaths measured but was starting to show a little strain in that, while both he and Steve were nowhere near out of breath.

“You do this everyday?” he asked them dubiously. Sam cast him a quick look, then focused back on the track in front of him in the middle-distance. Some kind of focusing technique?

“Uh-huh,” he said breathlessly, and kept running.

“Like, every day of the _week_?” Bucky asked. Sam tried another glance at him, and then seemed to decide it wasn’t worth it and focused back on the track. Beside him, Steve was grinning like a loon.

“Uh- _huh_ ,” he grunted, starting to sound peeved. Probably because it was too hard to have a conversation with Bucky beside him and stay focused on what was ahead of him.

Bucky flipped directions and started running backwards in front of Sam, to make conversation easier for him. “But _why_?”

“Oh _no_. Oh HELL no you did not just do that. One sassy-ass superhero I can handle, but this I will not tolerate,” Sam bellowed, about-facing sharply and running back the way they came. Steve peeled off laughing, collapsing onto the grass beside the track and clutching at his ribs.

Bucky stopped, completely confused. “Steve? Did I do something?”

Steve waved a hand in the air, still breathlessly chucking, so Bucky sat on the grass beside him. When Steve stopped sniggering like an idiot, he had to wipe tears away from his eyes before answering. “Buck, you just ran backwards in front of Sam like it was nothing while he was going top speed.”

Bucky stared. “ _That_ was not top speed. That was a _jog_.”

“You and I,” Steve said, waving a hand back and forth between them, “are enhanced. No, that’s not top speed for you, and nowhere near it for me, but for Sam that was definitely not a jog. And he’s, ah, perhaps a little sensitive about someone enhanced rubbing it in.”

A beat of silence.

“You rub it in, don’t you?” Bucky asked flatly.

“Yep,” Steve said, and flopped onto the grass laughing helplessly again. “And then you did it without even meaning to!”

Bucky huffed out a sigh, sitting on the grass next to Steve while he giggled away. Steve looked good laughing, and Bucky realized he hadn’t seen this before, hadn’t seen a full belly laugh – only wry chuckles and little sarcastic snorts. His whole face was alight with happiness; his eyes scrunched up so dark lashes mostly obscured blue eyes. He looked beautiful. Bucky had one of those odd flashes of memory, more like a still picture than anything else – small Steve, impossibly young, laughing in the same way, his scrawny body scrunched up onto couch cushions on the floor.

“Don’t hurt yourself there, punk. Asthma don’t care if you think it’s funny,” Bucky said suddenly, not knowing where the words came from, or the sudden hint of a drawling accent.

Steve caught his breath, all laughter gone, and for a minute Bucky thought he had ruined everything by finding a tiny part of past-Bucky and letting him out, but Steve only gave him a slow, joyful smile.

“Okay, Buck. Whatever you say,” he said, sitting up and brushing some leaves out of his hair. “Want to go for a real run now?”

*

 **Tin can** : Steve answer your phone

 **Tin Can** : Steve stop running around the park doing parkour with your boyfriend YOU’RE ON THE NEWS

 **Sammibirb** : I let you out of my sight for two minutes and you’re all over Vine

*

In retrospect, they had perhaps gone a bit overboard, Steve had to admit. It had just felt incredibly freeing – running in the early morning light around the mostly empty tracks in Central Park. Bucky had started the acrobatics, to be fair. Vaulting over a park bench, spring boarding off another, flipping in midair and catching on to a tree branch in time to swing himself up easily into a light perch balanced on top of it. Smirking at Steve.

He is a _tiny_ bit competitive.

Now they stood in Steve’s living room in the Tower, each munching on a third breakfast bagel, watching themselves on blurry cell phone footage with Tony, Pepper and Sam. They’re on all the breakfast shows running news tickers like ‘Captain America and another mystery super soldier?’ One of the hosts, a blushing blonde, was laughingly admitting that the ‘mystery’ super soldier with the metal arm could _lap_ her any day. Steve could feel himself starting to blush.

“What does that mean?” Bucky asked in a low tone, bagel paused halfway to his mouth. His hair was down now, but in the footage playing (yet again) onscreen it was tied up in a loose bun – the sharp cut of his jawline and wicked cheekbones clearly visible. He’d pushed his sleeves up at some point, and his metal arm was caught on film, flashing in the morning light.

“It means she likes your dreamy face, Robo-Buck,” Tony said wryly. “Turn it off, Jarvis.”

The screen went dark, and Sam turned to smirk at them both, while Pepper just fixed them both with a generous smile. “Stark Industries will offer the full support of our media and PR department, of course. You need to decide what to do about this, though. If Bucky would like to go out in public more – which I think is a wonderful idea, by the way – disclosing his true identity, providing a cover story or making no statement at all will all have pros and cons,” Pepper said.

Bucky just looked confused and a little anxious, and Steve sighed.

“Thank you. I think Buck and I may need to discuss it and get back to you on this.”

They didn’t talk about it until that night. Steve decided to let Bucky to consider the implications, maybe ask questions, but it wasn’t until they were getting ready for bed that he brought it up. They brushed their teeth side by side, already changed into pajamas, and it felt so incredibly domestic to climb into bed next to Buck now that it made Steve’s throat hurt. He propped himself against some pillows, book in hand, but Bucky didn’t pull out his Kindle like he usually did for their quiet read before sleep. He lay on his side, flesh hand between his cheek and the pillow, staring at Steve.

“If I tell the world that I’m him – Bucky Barnes – they’ll expect me to _be_ him,” Bucky said after a while, and Steve set the book aside.

“We could tell the world a limited version of the truth – that you were a prisoner of Hydra and experimented on. We could say that you’re Bucky or choose not to. Either way, we can explain that the torture they inflicted on you affected your memory,” he said evenly. He always had to be careful around Bucky when talking about Hydra – Buck tended to personalize any rage Steve expressed.

“I’m him. But I’m not. I don’t remember being him,” Bucky said, biting his lip.

“You don’t have to remember,” Steve said gently. “You are still the man that made up Bucky Barnes – kind and funny and good. They erased your memories but they couldn’t erase your personality, not really. I wouldn’t go back and erase history to turn you back into the guy I knew in the 40s, it’s not how it works. It would be discounting what’s happened to you and what you’ve overcome. You _are_ Bucky Barnes – the version of him who survived Hydra. I like you just how you are.”

Bucky was quiet for a long time, seeming lost in his own thoughts – the lamplight brought out rich tones of chestnut in the hair that fell over his cheek and caught on the bristles on his jaw. He was beautiful, Steve thought. It seemed unreal, that after them both dying and 70 years apart they could come together again. Steve loved him. It _ached_.

“I want… I want to tell people that you found me. You brought me _home_ ,” Bucky said finally.

“Okay… okay Buck,” Steve said, throat thick with emotion.

When they turned the lights off, Bucky wriggled right into his arms, making a contented noise when Steve started carding his fingers through his soft, loose hair.

*

Bucky dreamed of that moment when the Avengers brought him out of cryostasis in the lab. In his dream he still punched through the tiny glass window to open the door, but when he fell out of the cryotube, he was caught in strong arms and when he looked up, he _knew_ Steve.

“Steve,” he said, and Steve smiled.

“Steve. I thought you were smaller,” Bucky said.

“Steve, I’m ready to come home now,” he said.

Because Steve had always been his home.


	4. Chapter 4

The next afternoon they gathered in the Avengers Tower pressroom. Bucky was sitting back from the podium but still saw that most cameras were pointed his way, clicking idly as he sat with his hands folded in this lap, the sleeves of his blue henly pushed up to show his metal arm. When Steve cleared his throat at the microphone, the camera lenses all swiveled in his direction.

“Yesterday morning I went for a run with my friend, and well… you all saw the news,” Steve said dryly, and there was a smattering of laughs throughout the room. Behind him, Sam put his hand on Bucky’s shoulder for a comforting squeeze as Steve paused to visually check on him before turning back to the press. “He is enhanced, as is quite obvious from the – the fun we were having jumping around a bit.”

Steve had gone a bit red. The cameras flashed.

“I’m here to tell you about my friend, who is currently in recovery. As you know, a few months ago the Avengers ran an operation out of Arizona to take down a Hydra cell. Wait until I’m finished, please,” Steve said, holding up his hand to the journalists who were just about popping out of their chairs with questions. “We discovered a cryostasis unit that we believe was delivered to the American arm of Hydra out of Russia, back when the Soviet Union was collapsing. However the technology had malfunctioned, and Hydra had never been able to release the enhanced person who was frozen inside.”

The cameras flashed in a sudden flurry at Bucky, who tried not to flinch. Instead he kept his gaze steady on Steve, who gave him a small smile before continuing.

“This man was tortured, brainwashed and experimented upon by Hydra. He was an American soldier who did great things for this country, who was then turned into a weapon known in the intelligence community as the Winter Soldier. We have detailed records of how he was coerced, tormented and physically and emotionally abused during his time as the Winter Soldier – no questions yet, _please_!” Steve called as some reporters started standing up and calling his name.

“He has been recovering his sense of identity and autonomy for the last few months with us at Avengers Tower, and has made enormous progress in that regard – so much so that he wanted to come out running with me yesterday,” Steve said with a little, watery looking smile. “When we first pulled him from cryostasis, I don’t – I had no idea who he was. And sometimes I still feel as though it cannot be real.”

Steve turned to him, and on cue, Bucky stood, crossing to stand next to him at the podium. Steve was clearly trying very hard and very manfully not to cry, and wrapped an arm around his shoulder. Bucky wasn’t sure what to do with the naked emotion. Maybe hug. But they were in the middle of the press conference. Probably hugging after.

“This is someone I believed fell to his death over 70 years ago,” Steve said quietly into the mic, and all the reporters actually went quiet, leaning forward in anticipation. “This is my oldest friend, Sergeant James ‘Bucky’ Barnes.”

There was a moment of silence, and then the room erupted into chaos. Every reporter and photographer in the room surged to their feet, shouting questions, shouting Steve’s name and even shouting Bucky’s name. Steve ignored it for the moment, instead turning to Bucky and enveloping him in one of those really amazing rib-cracking hugs, and Bucky hugged back, pressing his nose into the side of Steve’s neck to inhale deeply, feeling calmed just from that. He didn’t want to let go. The press hadn’t stopped shouting.

When they turned back to the press and started taking questions, Bucky was glad that Pepper and her PR guru had helped to prep him that morning.

“Sergeant Barnes, how is it being reunited in the 21st century with Cap?”

“It’s uh, it’s a lot different than I’m used to. But I’ve got Steve. That’s all I need,” he said, leaning a bit too close to the microphone so his voice sounded too loud and breathy. He jerked away.

“Captain America, will the US government be prosecuting the Winter Soldier for his extensive list of assassinations?” some asshole asked, holding up his phone to show some of the dumped Shield files on Bucky. They’d been over them that morning – there wasn’t much there, mostly speculation.

“ _Son_ , are you asking me if the US government intends on prosecuting the longest-serving POW in American history, whose extensive torture is so well documented it’s impossible to read in one sitting?” Steve asked stonily, eyes hard and flinty. The reporter sat down, and Steve nodded. “I’ll say this. Bucky Barnes is healing with all the extensive help and resources that the Avengers and Stark Industries can provide. If any government official wants to come talk about his time as a prisoner of war, we are happy to provide all documentation we have.”

“Yeah, you fucking dick,” Sam muttered under his breath behind them.

“Bucky, what do you remember about your long period of captivity?” another reporter called, and Bucky blinked. Pepper had advised that they needed to get the press on their side – to have them immediately framing Bucky’s story as one of tragedy and innocence. Not even Pepper had predicted it would start happening this quickly though.

“I remember almost nothing,” Bucky said honestly. “They would… there was a chair, they would put me in it after I had been awake for any period of time. They used some kind of targeted electrical current – I’ve seen the paperwork here, I don’t really remember any of this – and they would wipe my memory. It hurt. I _do_ remember that. Then they would freeze me. I remember that just felt like dying, every time.”

There was a small, horrified silence in the room.

“Do you remember Captain America?” One woman asked, looking like she might cry if the answer was ‘no’.

“Stevie’s the only thing I do remember,” Bucky said with a smile, elbowing Steve. “I remember him when he was small. Just a tiny thing, all spit and fight. Still an idiot… I think? Probably an idiot, I don’t think you grow out of that.”

“Anyone special helping you through your recovery, some lucky girl?” Someone else asked. A flip, saccharine kind of question, from their tone. Probably one of the light news/entertainment shows.

“Uh, no,” Bucky said, leaning in to the mic. “I’m gay.”

For a moment there was a startled silence, matched by the open surprise on Steve’s face. And then the room was collectively calling his name again, on their feet, cameras flashing. Bucky looked to one side, to where Natasha was giving him a small, proud smile, and Pepper was crossing over to them, pushing in front of the mic to call time on the press conference.

*

“You like dames,” Steve said the second he and Bucky were back in the apartment, beginning to feel like his world was tilting on its axis and all the things he had ever assumed about it were wrong. Bucky flopped down onto the couch, just looking confused.

“It’s happening. It’s happening right now,” Natasha, who had _just_ managed to squeeze into the elevator with them before the doors shut, whispered into her phone – because she’d called someone? – and held it towards them. The screen said Clint was on the call. So much for trying to avoid having this discussion in front of the whole team.

“I’m gay, Steve,” Bucky said, looking calmly up at him. “Whatever the old Bucky said, whatever he did to blend in – I am 100% gay.”

“Oh my god,” Steve heard Tony say in a tinny whisper from the phone.

“You… you never stayed out all night,” Steve realized, his voice low and surprised. “You’d take a different girl out every night but you always came home.”

“I don’t… I don’t remember that,” Bucky said, ducking his head a little. “I just – I don’t feel anything sexual for women _at all_. That’s all I know now.”

“Well that’s… I mean it’s not like it changes anything anyway,” Steve said, which was a complete lie, and Natasha gave a little snort as if to punctuate that. “You know I support you no matter what and I’m here for you, of course…”

“Oh. My. _God_ ,” Tony whispered from the phone, and the way he said it this time seemed to imply Steve was fucking something up spectacularly.

“What about you Steve, while we’re sharing?” Natasha interrupted impatiently. “Gay, straight, somewhere in between…?”

“Um, bi I guess,” Steve said, feeling himself blush, because _yes_ , he’d gone out of his way not to identify to the team before now.

Bucky slowly looked up, tilted his head, and gave Steve a small, shy smile – just a curl of one corner of his mouth. It set Steve’s heart to racing, and he was pretty sure his hands were numb, just dangling by his sides like big slabs of meat. Bucky blinked slowly at him, and touched his tongue to his bottom lip. Steve was _dying_.

“OH COME _ON_!” Clint yelled from the phone, before Natasha cut off the call. It was enough to jolt Steve out of his stupor, and he put a big, fake smile on.

“Anyone want pizza? I’m going to walk. Walk and go get pizza. Okay,” he said hurriedly, and turned on his heel and left the room.

*

He called Sam while he walked.

“It’s _Bucky_. I mean firstly, how could I _not_ know? And fuck, I think Bucky knows that I – that…” he muttered as he walked aimlessly down the footpaths of Manhattan.

“Should we skip past the part where I know you two have been sleeping in the same bed for months?” Sam asked dryly.

Steve bit his lip and said nothing.

“Well, do you think he reciprocates?” Sam asked. Steve hesitated.

“I just. I mean, it would be taking-”

“If you’re about to say it would be taking advantage of him, _stop_ ,” Sam interrupted, tone sharper than Steve was used to. “As long as you both consent and neither of you are coerced, whatever you choose to get up to is perfectly fine.”

“But he’s not-”

“ _Steve_. You cannot tell him he’s his own person with free will and the right to choose, _except when it comes to sex_ ,” Sam said emphatically, and Steve stopped dead in the street to focus. “When he just came out of the tube was a different story. But now that he is capable of saying no, he is _also_ capable of saying _yes_.”

There was a long silence on the line.

“I’ve wanted him since we were kids,” Steve said quietly.

“And now you’re damn well terrified you might actually _get_ him,” Sam concluded, and Steve gave a huff of laughter, nodding even though Sam couldn’t see him. “Go home, do whatever normal stuff with your boy, and let it happen. But don’t bother me tonight, I got a date.”

“Who?!” Steve demanded, a bit miffed he hadn’t known before now.

“Maria,” Sam sighed dreamily. “She could kick my sorry ass twelve ways from Sunday. I kinda hope she does.”

“Okay, that’s too much information. But have fun. You’re both two of my favorite people. You’ll make beautiful babies together,” Steve said, smiling into the phone.

“Of _course_ we would make beautiful babies,” Sam said. “Now go for a walk, clear your head if you need to, but then go get your boy and don’t give me any of the gross details later. Just kidding, I want to know _everything_.”

*

After Steve left, Bucky turned to Natasha with a frown.

“Well the lip thing didn’t _not_ work. It clearly got him in a state,” she said, tapping one finger to her chin thoughtfully.

“Surely it would be more efficient to just show him the porn,” Bucky said stubbornly.

“Well yeah, but that’s more like a second date thing,” Natasha said, digging a random tablet out of the couch cushions. “Let me think about it. I want to see what the internet says about you dropping the gay bomb. I bet that gets more airtime than being back from the dead as a POW and former brainwashed assassin with a metal arm.”

A while later, she made the oddest squeaking noise.

“This is the actual _best_ ,” Natasha breathed from the couch, her tablet in front of her. Bucky blinked at her from where he’d been watching the news – all about him being gay – at the other end of the couch.

“What?” he asked.

“You and Steve. You’re a ship,” Natasha said, smirking.

“What,” Bucky said.

Wordlessly she passed him the tablet. It was open to something called Tumblr, and there were moving images – gifs? – of he and Steve at the press conference. Smiling at each other. Hugging. Touching one another’s arms. Bucky elbowing Steve. All of these little moments together, coalesced to a series of images where they made contact in some way and looked tenderly at one another. Bucky announcing he was gay, and Steve’s instant expressions of surprise and… hope?

It did not… it did not seem platonic, when you put it all together.

He scrolled. He saw photographs of Bucky Barnes from before, in the war, bumping shoulders with Steve and laughing at something he said. There were pictures of him in uniform put next to pictures of Steve with little poetic scraps of text put over the top or below the images. More pictures, still ones this time, of Steve turning back to smile at Bucky at the press conference – a close-up of his half-happy, half-yearning expression, and underneath someone had written, ‘cap’s face tho’.

Another one, of the moment Bucky said he was gay and Steve’s face was both completely surprised and hopeful, and someone had put underneath it, ‘adfasdfkj cap diDnT KNOW DID HE’.

“What… what is this? Who are they?” Bucky asked in a half-panic, shoving the tablet back at Natasha.

“It’s… people on Tumblr, I don’t know, people who _care_. Look,” she said, and tapped something else into the tablet and passed it back. “You’re trending.”

Posts of him. Pictures of him. And below it the text: ‘PROTECT BUCKY BARNES AT ALL COSTS’. Sometimes with a hash symbol in front of it; sometimes not. Other posts calling him a ‘smol recovery puppy’ or ‘gay winter baby’. Posts that were just a photo of him in uniform, that said ‘The representation we deserve. Thank you Bucky Barnes.’

“Oh,” he breathed unsteadily, scrolling through post after posts that were… nice. Strangers, who had never met him, wanting him to be safe and well.

“Yeah,” Natasha said slyly. “Steve is trending too, just FYI. Mostly because of the way he looks at you.”

A long silence while Bucky kept scrolling.

“How do I make a Tumblr?”

*

> _therealbvckybarnes:_
> 
> [Buckysmiling.jpg]
> 
> thank you to everyone has been so supportive of me, love to you all!
> 
> _buckmeister2000 replied:_
> 
> Is this really him? Fuck fuck fuck I think it’s actually him.
> 
> _cpt-beve-and-sgt-stucky replied:_
> 
> HOLY SHIT HE’S ON TUMBLR ABORT ABORT HIDE THE CAP PORN
> 
> _therealbvckybarnes replied:_
> 
> no wait I want to see it

*

**Borky:** are you okay?

**Borky:** I’m pretty sure it doesn’t take four hours to get pizza

**Borky:** is this because I said I’m gay?

**Steeb:** No, oh god no Bucky. Just the press conference was a lot. I’m on my way home, be there in 20.

*

When Steve sheepishly entered the apartment again, he found the living room dark, and had to follow the faint sound of splashes to the bathroom. Oh no, oh no he didn’t know if he could handle this right now, he thought, pushing open the bathroom door, didn’t know if he could deal with-

Bucky was in the bath, skin gleaming gold in the light of a couple of lit candles, hair already wet and trailing over his damp shoulders. He hadn’t massacred the bubbles for once, and was reclined back in the water, using a metal fingertip to idly make little splashes. He looked gorgeous, so _real_ and alive, and Steve was struck for the hundredth time that he was lucky, so lucky to have him back. He shouldn’t be thankful Bucky had needed to survive brainwashing and torture to be here but he still _was_.

Steve must have made a noise, or maybe Bucky just felt a draft from the open door, because he craned his head around to look, giving a lazy smile when he saw Steve. Bucky flicked his eyes at the chair they’d left in the bathroom for when Steve washed his hair, and then raised an eyebrow at Steve, like a challenge. The air between them was feeling a lot more charged than their normal bath routine, and Steve wondered if he was the only one to feel it. He stepped into the bathroom nonetheless, shut the door behind him and pulled the chair over to the side of the bath.

“Candles are new,” he said gruffly, settling into the chair. The shampoo and conditioner were on the little shelf on the wall above the bath, so Steve would have to lean over him to get it.

“Smells nice,” Bucky said softly. In the steam rising from the water, Steve thought he could smell jasmine and lilacs. The candles smelled like frangipani. Bucky liked mixing scents.

Steve stared at the shampoo and conditioner on the shelf, trying to brace himself for what was to come. In the morning they could talk, but right now he had to wash Bucky’s hair while he made soft little sounds of enjoyment and leaned into every touch, and Steve would get an awkward erection and have to force himself to end the contact.

He swallowed, and reached for the shampoo.

Lighting fast, Bucky grabbed his wrist with the metal hand and _yanked_ , using the strength of the metal arm and Steve’s awkward lean over the bath to bodily drag Steve into the tub. Steve yelped in surprise, hitting the hot water – and Bucky – with all of his weight, water slopping over the sides of the tub, bubbles spilling to the floor, while Bucky used his surprise to hook a leg around his knees and drag them into the water too, so Steve was hip-to-hip with him, draped full length over Bucky.

Bucky cupped his cheek with the flesh hand while Steve blinked in surprise and automatically tried to lift himself away from Bucky’s naked body – and curled a little smile. “You’re an idiot,” Bucky told him fondly, and kissed him.

Steve froze for a moment, Bucky’s soft lips pressed to his own, stubble rasping against his cheek, and then Bucky swept his tongue over Steve’s lower lip and he moaned into the kiss, sinking his weight down against Bucky, into the water. Bucky gave a pleased hum, licking into Steve’s mouth and curling his legs around his hips, making the water slap against the sides of the bath and lap over Steve’s back.

“Buck. Bucky,” Steve groaned into his mouth, and Bucky pulled him closer, capturing his lips for another searing kiss.

Steve’s head was spinning, he didn’t know what to do with his hands – Bucky was all naked skin beneath him and slow strokes of his tongue, tasting and teasing. Steve wanted to kiss like this forever – deep and hungry, feeling the little inhalations and hitches of breath as Bucky pushed his hardening cock into Steve’s hip. Bucky’s fingers curled under his t-shirt, and Steve braced his hands on the bottom of the bath, lifting up so Bucky could drag the wet material up and over one arm at a time. It was a shock to feel his naked skin against Bucky’s, and he gave a little stifled moan when one metal thumb stroked over his nipple.

Bucky used the strength of his legs to twist them in the water like a barrel roll, flipping Steve underneath him and sitting up, straddling Steve’s hips. His damp hair hung long around his face, shadowing his eyes, and between them his hard cock bobbed a little in the water, the head a dark, plummy red. Bucky trailed the metal hand down Steve’s chest thoughtfully, feeling the dips and curves of muscles, and it occurred to Steve for the first time that he had never _once_ seen Bucky act like there was any difference between his arms – because the metal one was _his_ , even if Hydra had made it.

“I love you. Every version of you,” Steve blurted suddenly, unable to keep it in any more. “Every version, but especially this one. Just how you are.”

Bucky smiled, looking suddenly shy, and touched a finger to the button of Steve’s jeans, hazy in the steam. “I love you too,” he said simply, and tilted his head. “I would like our relationship to include sex, please. I have bookmarked some porn if you would like visual references.”

Steve choked on a laugh, because _of course_ Bucky had been keeping visual references. “I think we can figure it out,” Steve said automatically, although… “I’ve never actually _had_ sex with a man before.”

“I don’t remember having sex with anyone before,” Bucky said with a one-shouldered shrug. He flicked open the button on Steve’s jeans with a metal thumb and finger. “I was at a loss of how to instigate sex with you so I showed some to Tony, but he said there was _etiquette_ about handing a tablet playing gay porn to someone.”

This time Steve did laugh, although it was somewhat breathless, what with Bucky easing his zipper down, tooth by tooth. “Why Tony?”

“Jarvis said Tony had numerous sexual liaisons before his monogamous relationship with Pepper. But then he produced a 68-page strategic document for getting us to admit our feelings for one another, and that’s when Natasha took over.”

“She’s… yeah that’s better, Natasha is probably better than Tony. What did she say?” Steve asked, trying to pay attention to the conversation and not the way Bucky was tugging Steve’s wet jeans down his hips, one millimeter at a time.

“To show you how I feel.”

“I feel… I’m crazy about you Buck. I want to show you all the time,” Steve whispered.

Bucky leaned over him then, so his hair hung around their faces, creating a little curtain of privacy where it was just the two of them. “You’re my home, Stevie,” he murmured in reply, just a little Brooklyn creeping in like it sometimes did, and pressed a gentle kiss to his lips. “Can we please have sex now?”

“God yes,” Steve said with feeling, using his upper body strength to sit right up, Bucky still straddling his lap, until they were kissing again, mouths hungry and wet. This was, Steve realized, Bucky showing _agency_ – all this time Steve had been so worried about taking advantage, but here was Buck, just as strong and beautiful as ever, reclaiming his body and his life.

Bucky dragged him out of the tub, and together they shucked Steve’s wet jeans and underwear from his body – there was a moment when Bucky was bent over and seemed to entirely forget what he was doing, instead staring at Steve’s hard cock bobbing next to his face. He darted forward to swipe his tongue over the tip, and Steve let out a strangled yelp and hauled Bucky back upright, dragging him through to the bedroom.

They crashed onto the sheets, still damp with bathwater, Bucky’s hair sticking to his cheeks, and Steve wanted to kiss him all over, wanted to bite his collarbones and the skin over his ribs, wanted to _touch_ Bucky everywhere just to remind himself this was real.

“You’re thinking too much,” Bucky said dryly when Steve was frozen with amazement too long, and shoved Steve onto his belly, shouldered between his thighs, spread his cheeks and licked a long stripe right over his ass.

“Buck!” Steve yelped, because surely that wasn’t – couldn’t be –

Bucky did it again, much slower this time, a long luxurious lick from behind his balls, over his hole with the flat of his tongue, and up the sensitive skin of his crack. All thoughts dropped immediately out of Steve’s head, because _Christ_ that felt good. Bucky gripped his hips, shuffled in closer and then teased his hole with the tip of his tongue, until Steve was groaning and rutting against the sheets. It got better – Bucky making pleased, happy little noises as he licked over Steve’s ass, circling it with his tongue, jabbing at his hole until the muscles started to relax and he could sink the tip of his tongue into Steve’s ass and fuck him with it. Saliva was tricking down to make his balls damp and sticky, and his cock was leaking into the bed sheets, and Steve was pretty sure he could come just like this, with just a little more.

Bucky seemed to sense how close he was, because he lifted his mouth away, ignoring Steve’s desperate keen at the loss, fumbling for something in the bedside table. There was a click, and the wet sound of something being squeezed out of a tube, and then Bucky was pressing a cold, lubricated finger against his hole – with all the work he’d already done on it, it slid right in.

“Oh!” Steve said in surprise, because while he’d thought about it, he’d never actually… _done_ anything like this before.

“Good oh?” Bucky asked, sounding worried, and Steve craned his head to look over his shoulder at Bucky kneeling between his spread thighs, one finger still buried in his ass, while his metal hand absently stroked his own erection.

“Feels… feels good,” Steve said, with an experimental wriggle. Bucky pumped his finger in and out, and seemed to be angling down, towards Steve’s bellybutton, until he stroked over something that made sparks ignite behind Steve’s eyes. “Oh, ohhh fuck _there_ , yes,” he groaned, shoving his hips back, and Bucky grinned.

It occurred to Steve, as he pushed back on Bucky’s finger and gave a low moan when another one was pushed in alongside the first, that this all suggested he was about to get fucked in the ass for the first time. Bucky’s cock, inside his ass. The thought gave him a little jolt of excitement, because okay, _maybe_ he’d thought about that quite a bit – and the reverse too. Bucky seemed to know what he was doing (probably all the porn, Steve realized), so he was just fine with Buck taking the lead this time.

“Take three?” Bucky asked breathlessly behind him, even as he worked a third finger into Steve’s tight ass – he felt so _full_ , so _stretched_ , he couldn’t even imagine how much better it will be when it was Bucky’s dick. He tried to scrabble up to knees and elbows, but Bucky made an abortive noise, suddenly pulling his fingers free and looping his metal arm under Steve’s belly. “No, wait-“

He flipped Steve onto his back, somehow getting out of the way of his legs, in one smooth motion. Steve fell back onto the pillows with a huff, impressed despite himself. Bucky was _strong_ – he’d known that before of course, but it hadn’t occurred to him what that meant beyond running around Central Park like a pair of excited idiots. Bucky could manhandle him in bed, and Steve could manhandle him back without having to worry about breaking him. God, that was _hot_.

“I want- I want to-“ Bucky tried to say, pupils blown wide with lust, reverting to the halting speech patterns from his early recovery days, like he only did now when he was very tired or very confused.

“I want you. Want you to fuck me,” Steve breathed out, grabbing his metal hand and pulling Bucky across him, over him, to kiss his jaw and cheek and perfect mouth. “Want to feel you inside you, over me, all around me.”

“Yes,” Bucky said succinctly, and kissed Steve – he could taste himself on the kiss, a little musky but nothing more worrying than that, and sucked on Bucky’s tongue, groaning.

Bucky got some more lube on his hand, breaking the kiss so he could kneel up and slick up his dick, while Steve stuffed a pillow under his hips because it seemed logistically practical. And then Bucky was poised between his spread thighs, pressing one knee up towards his chest, lining the tip of his cock up and slowly, slowly pushing forward.

It felt amazing – like nothing else, a slow burning stretch, filling him up and setting every nerve ending alight. Steve knew he was gasping in surprise, could see how intently Bucky was watching him, trying to focus even though he must have just wanted to shove forward all at once. He pushed in and in and in, until his balls were resting against Steve’s ass, and let Steve’s propped up leg fold around his waist, settling down on top of him.

“Okay?” Bucky asked, sounding a little choked, and Steve twined his arms around his neck and dragged him into a slow, perfect kiss.

“I can feel you everywhere,” Steve whispered, experimentally rocking his hips, feeling the slight friction of Bucky’s cock sliding against the rim of his ass.

“Next time you can fuck me and feel how good this is,” Bucky muttered, closing his eyes, his face rapturous.

“Fine, and then you can feel how good _this_ is,” Steve said, because he was nothing if not competitive at all times.

“Punk,” Bucky gritted out – another one of those breathless moments when he didn’t realize he’d lapsed into a Brooklyn accent. Steve grinned.

“Gonna make me wait all day here, jerk?”

Bucky didn’t. He started to rock his hips slowly, letting Steve really feel the fullness, the stretch of his ass, the slick slide of Bucky’s dick inside him. They kissed lazily, in no hurry to get anywhere or finish anything, until Bucky gave a helpless moan at the building pleasure and started to thrust properly. He shifted around a bit at first, trying new angles, until he scraped over that sweet spot inside and Steve practically shuddered off the bed, arching up and scrabbling at Bucky’s shoulders with a whimper.

Bucky got a satisfied, slightly desperate look on his face and started _nailing_ that spot, and every time his cock scraped hard against it Steve gave a hard, wanton moan, locking both legs around Bucky’s waist, kissing at his neck, his shoulder, anywhere he could reach, every thrust feeling like an electric snap of pleasure behind his balls, shooting up his spine and down to his toes. He was slick with sweat, trying to drag Bucky closer, and even using all his strength Bucky just held him steady, thrusting into him, that pleasure building and building until he couldn’t hold it anymore – orgasm rushing over him like a hurricane, calling Bucky’s name, come jetting over both their abdomens, and Steve feeling like might just disintegrate into pure, perfect pleasure and let all his atoms meld into Bucky.

Bucky didn’t look away, kept snapping his hips, balanced on his elbows, ducking his head to kiss Steve as his thick, perfect cock shoved into Steve over and over again, until he gave a broken, shuddering cry, coming inside Steve with a look of surprise so complete it would have been funny if it weren’t so pure, before slowly letting gravity take him and sprawling over Steve’s chest, both of them still shaking in the aftermath.

“Love you Stevie,” Bucky said after a while, and Steve gave a great, happy sigh to hear there wasn’t any Brooklyn in his voice then at all.

“Love you too, Buck.”

*

Bucky woke like every other morning – his erection was pressed against Steve’s hip, and Bucky was cuddled into his side. Unlike every other morning, though, Steve’s hip and Bucky’s erection were naked, and it was long past dawn. This morning he did not have to shoot out of bed to the bathroom of his old bedroom to frantically jerk off, because he and Steve had sex the night before. Several times. Steve had even woken him in the middle of the night so they could lazily kiss and rut against one another until they got off, which explained why he felt a bit sticky this morning.

His ass ached a little, too. In a good way, a very good way. He would have to tell Natasha that anal sex was excellent, and Steve was excellent at it too – she always got the funniest look on her face when he explained his thoughts and feelings about sex to her. A look that said partly that she was proud of him, and partly that she had a voyeuristic, predatory kind of interest in hearing him describe sexual acts. It was kind of odd, but Bucky wasn’t one to judge.

“You gonna do anything about that, or just poke me with it?” Steve asked sleepily, and Bucky was jerked out of his thoughts – he hadn’t realized Steve was awake. He cuddled closer, pointedly rubbing himself on Steve’s hip, and Steve’s arm tightened around him and he gave a long groan, rolling into Bucky to capture his mouth for a long, sweet kiss.

“Flip a coin for top?” Bucky asked dryly when they broke apart, raising an eyebrow. Steve looked perfect in the morning light – all pale skin, clear blue eyes, red lips and golden hair.

“Or we could wrestle for it,” Steve said, waggling his eyebrows ridiculously. “Wait, for being _on_ top, or being _topped_?”

They both froze when they heard the distinct _ding_ of the elevator doors opening in the apartment. Followed by the very obvious noises or what sounded like all of the Avengers trying to be quiet. And failing. Bucky blinked at Steve, who gave the kind of heavy sigh that meant, _well I guess we’re getting up_. Bucky frowned and shoved his hips against Steve’s in a way that meant, _but after we have sex, right_. Steve blushed, and licked his lips, which meant he was considering it.

“Is the good Captain still abed?” a loud, booming voice that Bucky didn’t recognize said in the apartment. Steve brightened, all thoughts of sex clearly gone from his mind.

“Thor’s here!” he whispered, and scrambled from the bed.

Bucky scowled, and flopped back on the sheets. He’d heard all about Thor, who was supposed to be a brilliant warrior and wonderful person, but Bucky was pretty sure he’d just been cock blocked by an Asgardian Prince. Natasha had taught him that phrase (the context being, _Steve’s misguided concern for your agency are cock blocking you both_ ), and it was truly perfect.

*

When they walked out of the bedroom and into the large living room together, it was full of all of the Avengers and other permanent and semi-permanent residents of the Tower, a cake that said ‘ _FUCKING FINALLY!_ ’ in red, white and blue frosting, a hastily strung up paper banner that said ‘ _HOW WAS THE SEX?_ ’ in red, white and blue – and Tony started playing _Star Spangled Man_ and shot off some kind of red, white and blue confetti canon.

Steve went bright red. It was _amazing_.

“Captain! I am so pleased to find you not only well, but to be informed you have recovered your long lost brother in arms – who is now your lover, I take it? A development worth celebrating indeed!” the tall blonde giant who must be Thor said, stepping forward to clasp Steve in a bone-crunching hug. If possible, Steve went even redder.

Among the other Avengers, who were chuckling at Thor but other setting about cutting up cake – red velvet, perfect – was a tiny, elfin woman who was staring at Thor with a kind of embarrassed fondness, and a lusciously beautiful brunette with generous red lips, who sidled up to him like they were old friends and poked him in the ribs with her elbow.

“Congrats on banging Cap. He’s like, dialing it to eleven on the hot factor, you know? Kudos on tapping that,” she said with a knowing nod. Clint had shown Bucky _Spinal Tap_ , so he gave her a genuine smile at the compliment. “I’m Darcy, by the way. I make sure Jane eats food.”

“Instead of non-food items?” Bucky asked curiously, looking over to the beautiful elf-woman Darcy pointed out.

“Instead of no-food items,” Darcy said with a shrug. “She’s a scientist.”

Bucky thought of how Tony got, and decided that made perfect sense.

“Did you throw Jane and Thor a party the morning after they first had sex?” he asked.

“No, but I wish I had! Look at the sheer perfection of that level of embarrassment,” Darcy said, and they both turned to admire the prolonged blush that Steve was sporting while talking with Jane now, that didn’t seem like it was going to let up any time soon.

Tony popped some champagne across the room while both Pepper and Bruce looked on in long-suffering resignation – which told Bucky that whatever Tony had originally planned had been much, much worse. Natasha joined them, and gave Bucky an affectionate kiss on the cheek.

“How stupid was he?” she asked, and Bucky smirked.

“Less stupid than I was anticipating. Especially after I dragged him into the bath with me and kissed him.”

“Go on,” Darcy said, in that slow, heavy-lidded way that Natasha sometimes got when Bucky talked about sex.

“He told me he loves me,” Bucky confessed, feeling oddly shy about this – after all he knew Steve felt that way, or at least was pretty sure, but it still felt new. Still felt fragile, like something he had to cradle deep in his chest and keep safe. “And then we had sex three times. No wait, five. Five times.”

“Christ. Super soldiers,” Natasha said, blinking.

“Positions? Duration of foreplay? Dirty talk?” Darcy asked. She’d pulled a notepad and chewed on pencil from somewhere.

“Bucky! Come meet Thor!” Steve called from across the room, and Bucky was glad to go – Darcy was even more intense than Natasha. He liked her though, very much. He smirked at her as he went – no doubt he could use details of his and Steve’s sex life as some kind of leverage against her if it ever came up in the future. She winked saucily at him in return.

“Hi Thor, Jane, I’m Bucky,” he said as he came up to the golden giant, and was immediately embraced in a spine-squeezing hug. He looked over Thor’s bulging bicep at Steve, who smiled at him, open and loving.

“A friend of Steven’s is a friend of mine,” Thor boomed in his ear. “How was the sexual congress? I hope Steve is a generous lover!”

*

Bucky never remembered his old life. He never remembered his life as the Winter Soldier, the torture and the killing, so Steve was pretty glad about that. Every now and then he would slip into a Brooklyn accent without realizing, although it happened less and less with time. He told Steve that sometimes he could see an image, a snapshot out of time, usually of Steve before the serum – but never more than that.

Didn’t matter.

Bucky was different in exactly the ways to be expected for a man who’d been through what he’d been through, so in a way he was exactly the version of himself he was always going to be. He still had a sly, stealthy sense of humor, and he was still a kind and giving person. He was Bucky, one who loved Steve and whom Steve loved.

Not a man made into a shadow of himself, but one who could never completely be obliterated – he’d grown back, revived, and somehow found his way to Steve again.

*

> _therealbvckybarnes:_
> 
> [BuckyandCapsmooching.jpg]
> 
> so this is happening
> 
> _buckmeister2000 replied:_
> 
> OH my gOD THEY re sooo cUTE!!!
> 
> _cpt-beve-and-sgt-stucky replied:_
> 
> HOLY SHIT IT'S ALL OUR STUCKY PORN COME TRUE
> 
> _therealbvckybarnes replied:_
> 
> where is this stuff why won't anyone tell me

 

**Author's Note:**

> I am [Geneticallydead on Tumblr](http://geneticallydead.tumblr.com/)!


End file.
